Interview by Sam McMurdock
Casey McCabe, 21, has not had the easiest of lives, but thanks to the Irish Homeless Street Leagues (IHSL), an organisation that uses the power of sport to transform the lives of people affected by social exclusion, she has turned her life around – and now wants to help to change the lives of others.
McCabe grew up in a flat in Constitution Hill, Dublin, Ireland with an older sister and younger brother. She gravitated towards sport and in a bid to harness her energy and draw on that proclivity, her father sent her to a boxing club, which she enjoyed but found quite isolating.
At 14, McCabe’s mother, aware she was more partial to being part of a team, took her up to Home Farm FC in Whitehall after she heard that they were starting a girls’ football team.
“Mam knew I was always playing football at the flats with the boys,” McCabe says. “I was always that girl who needed to be kicking a ball, always that girl who had all the boys as friends because I was good on the pitch.”
But three years ago, life took a downward turn for McCabe. She could not get along with her mother’s partner, and she and her mother “butted heads constantly,” so McCabe left her family home and found herself homeless.
Leave a reply
Your email address will not be published.