Omar stands in the fading light facing west, his long fingers gripping the railings by the side of the bridge. In the distance the sun is setting, beneath him the last of the evening traffic is weaving its way home. This is Omar’s thinking time, when he dreams of his future, when he hopes and imagines — when he steadies himself to focus on brighter days in the city which has become his home, his safe harbour.
When he whispers: ‘This is Cork’. “I cross the pedestrian bridge from where I am staying on the Kinsale road to Tramore Valley Park where I run or walk. Often I stop and take some time to gather my thoughts and to look out over Cork.
To take in this place which has taken me in,” he tells me after finishing a long shift. He works in security at a store in the city. Long hours.
.. but he doesn’t complain, Abdiaziz Hassan Omar never does.
Even when he spent five months, some during a freezing winter, in a tent at the Central Mental Hospital site in Dundrum in Dublin, he didn’t complain. The 30-year-old former English teacher from Southern Somalia is one of over 300 people who has signed up to take part in Sunday’s Cork City Marathon as a Sanctuary Runner. Almost half the team is made up of people who live in Direct Provision, with most running the 10-kilometre distance.
Omar is running the half marathon. Like so many of the wonderful people who have run with Sanctuary Runners in Cork in the past six-and-a-half-years Omar is soft spoken, incredibly decent, a.