"Conor" (28) was bullied at school, found out at the age of 11 that the man he thought was his father was not, and lost a custody battle for his daughter despite the fact she had been taken into care.
"By the time I came to Ireland I was suicidal. I had lost everything."
Born to Irish parents in London, he has spent long spells homeless and is currently living in a transitional housing project run by the charity Focus Ireland. He is working part-time in a major department store in Dublin.
"School was the biggest issue for me. The bullying started from about the age of five. I've got no idea why. I was just one of those kids that people disliked. By the age of 10 or 11 I got the nickname 'Psycho O'Reilly'. It took the form of everything from name-calling to throwing things at me in class to doing stupid things that I'd get the blame for and I'd get removed from class." This continued into secondary school. He had one friend for a time as a child, but this friend "broke connection with me" because he was getting abuse for hanging around with him.
At age 11 his mother told him his "father" was not, in fact, his father, a subject he glosses over, explaining he had little relationship with his stepfather anyway. Asked whether he was violent, Conor answers simply, "Yeah". At 15 his school principal advised him not to return to school after a summer break "because I had none of the course work done". Out of school he was told by his stepfather to get out of the family home. His older sister, then 16, had already left home, while his older brother was in the army. His then girlfriend's mother "was a diamond", helping him find work in a hotel that came with accommodation.
The main thing keeping him going now is the hope that he will one day make contact with his daughter, Rachel, now four.
Conor came to Ireland about a year ago. Focus Ireland says his life has followed the same trajectory as that of many homeless young men. Now out of emergency housing, he is hoping to find his own place.
He is hampered, however, by the fact the local authority does not generally house healthy, single men, who constitute by far the biggest single group of homeless people.