Don O’Leary was told last February that he had less than a year to live. Despite that he has still not missed a day at work as the director of the Cork Life Centre, which caters for youths who are unsuited to the confines of the education system. He talks about how the system fails so many and how the Life Centre has managed to succeed with youths who might otherwise have had nowhere to go. He looks back over a life that included a term in Portlaoise Prison for membership of the IRA in the 1980s and how after he was released he grabbed a chance to get involved in education, which became his passion. Last year he received an honorary doctorate from UCC and he insists that he’s won’t let his condition dictate how he lives.

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