{"id":355802,"date":"2026-03-20T08:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T08:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/355802\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T08:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T08:32:07","slug":"sligo-retirement-village-residents-face-eviction-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/355802\/","title":{"rendered":"Sligo retirement village residents face eviction \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sick, elderly and disabled people living in a Co Sligo<\/a> retirement village have described the moment they learned they were due to be evicted as \u201cgut-wrenching\u201d and \u201cvery frightening\u201d. <\/p>\n

David Stewart (55), who is blind in one eye and suffers chronic pain from a spinal disease, said receiving the notice to quit felt \u201cterrible\u201d. <\/p>\n

Stewart lives in one of 27 purpose-built special needs houses in the Sonas Retirement<\/a> Village in Enniscrone. His landlord, the Athlone-based company Nasso BK Holdings Ltd, notified tenants of six houses in the village last November that they must leave by June 5th. The houses are part of a larger estate of homes for independent living located around a nursing home. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was gut-wrenching. When I told my partner she was in tears,\u201d he said. \u201cIt brought her MS on. She ended up in hospital for over a week because of the stress this has caused.\u201d <\/p>\n

The tenants are aged between their 50s and 80s and include Stewart\u2019s parents, Elizabeth (84) and Frank (88), who has Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve tried to get a place but Dad needs a downstairs room with a shower and there\u2019s no houses or flats like that. It\u2019s been stressful,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not bothered about myself; I\u2019d rather get them a place,\u201d he added, pointing towards his mother. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhere\u2019s my dad going to go? What street corner is he supposed to sleep on?\u201d<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Stewart added: \u201cWe didn\u2019t have a Christmas this year thinking about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can they put us out on the street? How can they lift Frank out?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid Stewart and his partner, Trish Hogan, outside their home in Enniscrone. Photograph: Brian Farrell <\/p>\n

The couple have lived in their age-friendly home for the past five years and found it ideal for Frank\u2019s needs given that he broke his hip twice last year and is now immobile. They have nowhere else to go and cannot find suitable alternative accommodation in the locality. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always owned our own house. I thought we were too old to buy a new house so we decided to rent. That\u2019s what everyone kept telling us to do years ago \u2013 move into a retirement village. Little did we know,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

David Stewart said that if the landlords need to sell up, he would like to see a new owner come in that would allow them to stay on as tenants. <\/p>\n

A few doors down, former chef Justin Carroll (58) said he was distraught at the thought of having to move out. He also has MS and cannot walk unaided. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was living quite content,\u201d he said. \u201cI was really happy in the home here. It felt this was final.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"JustinJustin Carroll (58), who has MS, at his home in Sonas Retirement Village in Enniscrone, Co Sligo. Photograph: Brian Farrell <\/p>\n

Carroll said receiving the notice to quit was \u201cvery frightening\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe it. I\u2019m not sleeping too sound at night because it\u2019s only a few months to June. I\u2019m on the roadside basically now,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd after five years living here, I feel as if I have lived nowhere else. I\u2019d like to end my days here.\u201d <\/p>\n

Other tenants have cancer and said they were too upset to talk. <\/p>\n

Independent councillor Joe Queenan has been advocating on behalf of the residents with the landlord and Sligo County Council<\/a>, but to no avail. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is there\u2019s no accommodation at all in west Sligo,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s a special case because they\u2019ve nowhere to go and because of their medical needs and their age. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018I sleep easier here\u2019: The makeshift homeless community under the M50Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cI would ask the people who own these houses to revisit it again, to see can we do something in the short term and maybe put a plan in place over the next number of years so this can be resolved.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Nasso BK Holdings Ltd said the company would \u201cnot make any comment\u201d on queries raised at this time.<\/p>\n

Sligo County Council has also declined to comment on the situation. <\/p>\n

Sonas, which runs the nursing home, said it has no connection with the tenants and would not be commenting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sick, elderly and disabled people living in a Co Sligo retirement village have described the moment they learned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3662,61,60,43,1611,14169,161549],"class_list":["post-355802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-housing-crisis","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-retirement","tag-sligo","tag-sligo-county-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}