Men’s Sheds: An Antidote to Loneliness and Isolation

John Evoy could have done with a support like Men’s Shed when he was a young man. Having struggled with issues common to so many young men himself, when he visited his first Men’s Shed in Australia, he realised it’s what had been missing in his home country all along.

“When I was younger, I experienced some of the issues that some of the guys in the sheds are going through and I have a lot of empathy with them. I was born and raised on a farm in Co Wexford, and I ended up living alone with my grandmother through certain circumstances in late teens and 20s. At the time, I also stopped farming. We sold the cows, which was a huge deal, especially because of the intergenerational links with the farm and the importance of the land in Ireland. I felt so isolated.”