Antoinette Foley (32), who is recovering from addiction to heroin and crack cocaine, has urged people not to make assumptions about people living rough.
She was sleeping in a tent in a car park near the River Barrow in Co Kildare in 2021 when she asked nearby shop owner James Mahon if he had any spare change.
He reached into his pocket and gave her five euro and she thanked him.
A few days later he came to her tent to ask if she would take part in a photography exhibition he was doing, sparking a friendship that would result in Ms Foley being housed and recovering from addiction.
Antoinette Foley in one of the images that appear in James Mahon’s book
Mr Mahon, an amateur photographer, now has an exhibition of photos taken of Ms Foley in the Art House gallery in Athy.
He also released a book this year about Ms Foley’s story called The Hawk Against The Dove: Addiction In Small Town Ireland.
She said she is telling her story for her children’s sake, and in order to help inform others about the dangers of drugs.
We used the photography, really, as a way of communicating and of building up that friendship
A settled Traveller, she said she got into drugs after a boyfriend gave her heroin, when she did not know what it was, to help ease a toothache.
She said it was hard for her to trust Mr Mahon at first and he tried to help her several times.
“She had been used and abused over the years and was wondering ‘What’s he after?’,” Mr Mahon said.
“We used the photography, really, as a way of communicating and of building up that friendship.”
Ms Foley said: “I was like death alive basically, a lost soul. People just looked at a girl sitting with a cup, they just looked at a tent. They didn’t know what was going on, they didn’t know the story.
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Antoinette Foley got clean and is now doing well. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire
“Don’t judge a book by its cover, and don’t look down on anyone unless you’re giving them your hand to help them up.
“There were photos there that James didn’t want to take, and I begged him to take them because I wanted youngsters to see what can happen to them.”
Mr Mahon said Ms Foley reduced her heroin use substantially by December 2023 with the help of daily visits to a methadone clinic before going completely clean.
He said drug addiction in a small town is harder to hide than in a city, and Ms Foley used to beg outside the local Aldi with a torn coffee cup every day.
She was living rough, she was suffering from substance abuse addiction and she was a Traveller
“This story played out so much in public. The tent was right opposite the parish church, right beside the secondary school, beside a car park where the parents would come and collect the children, so that anybody could see it,” Mr Mahon said.
“She came here and she was in Athy with three hooks on her back that people could hang their prejudice and their preconceived ideas – she was living rough, she was suffering from substance abuse addiction and she was a Traveller.
“When this project started, it wouldn’t have been the most popular. I was nearly seen to be encouraging her.
“It was covered over a four-year period. In the first couple of years of that, I could see things were improving and you could sense that it was improving.”