Antoinette's story of addiction & recovery in Athy

IT’S been four years in the making, but the collective compassion of a Kildare town, combined with the determination of a homeless woman suffering from addiction, has grown into an extraordinary book that will see a second print run delivered this week.

The Hawk against the Dove – addiction in small town Ireland is the remarkable story of Antoinette Foley and James Mahon. Antoinette had been homeless and begging on the streets of Athy, and he was a store owner and former councillor, who between them helped turn a despair into a stunning triumph.

“It all goes back to 2021 when Antoinette was in her late 20s, and her then partner Johnny were here in Athy, living in a tent under the trees in the car park opposite the Catholic Church, just the two of them,” explained James, who is an amateur photographer.

“I met up with a Travelling boy; he was on heroin, and we went homeless,” Antoinette explained matter-of-factly.

“She’d spend a Tuesday sitting outside Aldi with a paper cup after she lost her dole, and I’d see her fairly regularly because I have my shop (JM Computers) nearby,” continued James.

“She was there for a couple of months, so I made my enquiries off (county councillor) Aoife Breslin and a couple of the guards about her background.

“One of them said there was something in her, worthwhile, one of the better ones …. so, I thought she’d make a nice project because we (Athy Photography Society) had an exhibition coming up.

“So, we engaged, and she agreed, and so she began coming up to see me in the shop, sometimes to use the toilet, sometimes to change the coins into notes.

“We (Carmel Whelan and James) found out she was a settled Traveller brought up in Castlecomer, so we got her back involved with social welfare, and helped her get her dole back.

“Carmel helped a lot and would regularly sit with Antoinette outside Aldi.

“But back in 2023 when there were the protests at the Abbey Hotel over the IPAS process, her tent became a sort of focal point for the protest, like, ‘look at where Irish people have to live’, so we helped get her moved into the Peter McVerry Trust in Newbridge, but she found it very hard.

“We found out her father (Tom Foley) was still alive in Castlecomer, so we contacted him, and when she moved back, she got a lot of stability, lots of improvement,” said James.

Of this time, Antoinette said: “I looked after me father for the guts of 19 months while I was doing my recovery, and I’d do it all over again. He’s me king and I’m his little girl.”

Antoinette also began engaging with addiction services.

She started methadone and reducing her heroin intake, and in December 2023 stopped taking heroin and crack cocaine, and began getting back on track.

“It was a long journey, hard, suffering, but I wouldn’t change a thing, because I wouldn’t be the woman I am now,” she said proudly.

She explained her motivation in her recovery. “My faith in Jesus got me through it, and I did it to make my mother and father proud. I did it for the sake of my mother (Helen, known as Nellie) in heaven, and to show what can be done through faith.”

Then, in 2024 she got involved with the Housing First initiative administered by Kildare County Council, but run by the Peter McVerry Trust, and they got her a little one-bed house in Newbridge, and she’s been there since.

“I’m doing very, very well,” she said simply.

James said: “It’s only the cigarettes now, and that’s a big turnaround in only four years.

“As Antoinette’s progress developed, I kept a photographic documentary of it, and she was excited to be part of the project that had a start and a middle, but the end we didn’t know, until she got housed, and then we had the story.

“So, we produced the book in April – a 132-page hardback with 65 pictures and accounts which sold for €30.

“Antoinette was well-known around Athy, people sympathised and would’ve looked out for her, so when we brought out the book it sold out – that’s over a hundred copies!” 

Although fear not, a second print run is scheduled to arrive in Mahon’s “mid-next week”.

“On its success, we applied to Kildare County Council for a grant and got €1,400 towards an exhibition.

“It’s going to be in the Arthouse on Leinster Street, where Anthony Haughey is the Artist-in-Residence (TUD media lecturer).

“We’re hoping for July or August, it’s to be announced yet, but you can expect 25 photos in the exhibition from the 100s taken around the town of Antoinette.

“The exhibition will follow the story as it unfolded, but very, very few of the photos are staged, because the life Antoinette was living was chaos, and she had little time for photoshoots,” said James.

And Antoinette now?

“My family looked down on me because I was homeless, on the streets, and on the drugs, but James was like a father to me,” she said.

“But my mother and father were the best in the world – never did drugs, never fought, I was their baby girl,” she said.

And the future? It’s looking positive.

“I have a friend (in Athy) who’s doing’ very well and when I got to visit, I’d see him (the ex) begging’ outside Lidl or Aldi, and I just walk by him,” she said.

“I’ll forgive him, there’s no hatred in me, but I want nothing to do with him.

“I know my worth, my value, and he won’t drag me down,” said Antoinette.