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He was healthy, active and busy working in a senior leadership role for Fleetwood Paints. Life was full, sometimes stressful, but generally good. Hospital was somewhere he visited only occasionally for minor ailments.
All of that changed on an ordinary morning in April 2022 when he was at home alone, one he still recalls in fragments; the sound of the alarm, a sense that it beeped slightly differently, and the blurred sequence of his usual organised routine. He was getting ready as normal and had not realised he was behind time on his normal routine. He usually met his assistant in the factory at 7.15 a.m. for their daily planning session, but she was on her way to Dublin that morning, so the briefing was to be done by phone.
When the phone rang, he answered instinctively. What came out of his mouth made no sense.
I picked it up and whatever I said was complete gibberish. I thought I was replying normally, but it was not coherent at all.
His assistant quickly realised something was very wrong. Fortunately, she was not far from his house and said that she would call up. When she sent a follow‑up text, Kieran tried to reply. It arrived as a jumble of letters.
Ten minutes later, after phoning the hospital, she was standing on his doorstep. She took one look at him and asked, “Did you not notice your face is down on one side?” He hadn’t. He hadn’t even looked in the mirror. His assistant drove him directly to the hospital and he was there by 8 a.m. which was “a stroke of luck”, he says now, because early mornings are when the consultants begin their rounds. It only took 45 minutes from that early morning call to arriving at the emergency room.
The Irish Heart Foundation’s Act F.A.S.T. campaign aims to raise awareness of the signs of stroke and the importance of getting medical attention as soon as possible. F.A.S.T. stands for Face, Arms, Speech and Time. Effective stroke treatment is hugely time dependent. The faster you act, the more of the person you can save.
He was seen immediately. The rest of the day and the days that followed are a blur. He had numerous scans, MRIs, and tests. Kieran knew very little about strokes and was concerned about the potential impact it could have. A relative had a stroke twelve years previously and he recalled her rehabilitation during that first day. The stroke left her with impaired mobility on one side of her body and had a big impact on her independence
I didn’t understand how they happened. All I could think was ‘I walked into the hospital, so I want to walk out again’. I wasn’t prepared to lose my independence. My three children were my focus that day. I didn’t wany my relationship with them to end with me unable to fulfil my responsibilities as a father.
Kieran was diagnosed with an ischemic stroke due to an undiagnosed patent foramen ovale (PFO), a small opening between the upper chambers of the heart that failed to close naturally after birth. An ischemic stroke occurs when there is a blockage or clot in an artery which cuts off the supply of blood to your brain – in Kieran’s case this happened in the middle cerebral artery (MCA), “the brain’s largest and most important artery”. Prior to his stroke there had been nothing that suggested any health concerns. His cholesterol was normal, his blood pressure was normal, and he was generally healthy.
He spent 10 days in hospital. Much of that time is hard to recall. Physically, Kieran was doing well. But the stroke had affected his ability to communicate. “I couldn’t write. I mixed up words. Facial recognition didn’t work on my phone, and I couldn’t remember my phone password, and when I did finally get in, I couldn’t even spell the word ‘stroke’ to look up what had happened; which was frustrating at the time, but probably a blessing.”
He was referred to the Mater Hospital’s Early Supported Discharge (ESD) team, who worked intensively with him for several months. He did occupational and speech therapy three times a week which included cognitive and motor skills tests; simple pronunciation, spelling, writing and memory tests, with the aim of recovering some of his lost skills, including being able to get his driving licence back. “I will be forever grateful for the help they gave me “. He brought his laptop into sessions so therapists could use real-life tools from his job such as Excel sheets, emails, and potential tasks, rather than abstract exercises. “It gave me structure, and it helped me see progress, even when I didn’t feel it.”
From there, he moved on to the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire (NRH) for further support. He struggled with pronunciation and recollection of words. “The word cholesterol was beyond me for months”. His speech and language therapy became a weekly reminder of how far his brain still needed to come. Kieran still hadn’t the confidence to cross a road unaccompanied, “even a pedestrian crossing” after six months. “I found life very difficult at this point. I didn’t believe I could get back to work or normality and so I felt a little hopeless”.
For months he slept 12 hours a night, sometimes more. Any change from routine knocked him backwards. “I would try and measure my fatigue by staying up an hour later on a Monday and see how long it would take to recover; for the first six months it might take a week. People don’t realise this part of the recovery process and how much stroke drains you”.
Chronic neuro-fatigue and brain fog became some of the most challenging symptoms and remain so. A complex conversation, or even a challenging discussion, can affect Kieran’s processing and energy long after the occasion. Concentration fluctuates and he has become adept at planning and organising his time. “When I struggle with neuro-fatigue, I can operate as normal, and people assume everything is good. But there is so much going on behind the scenes with recovery. Only someone who has been through this can understand the work that we go through.”
Things slowly improved and with the support of the company that he works for, Kieran returned to work in September 2022 in a part-time advisory capacity. “I was going home at lunchtime for a nap, and if I made it through the day the rest of my week was resting.” He gradually increased his tasks and workload and returned full time the following January. “Fleetwood have been amazing; they are a second family. Every colleague I work with has been so supportive.”
It was nearly a year after his stroke when Kieran came across the Irish Heart Foundation’s Fatigue Management Course on Facebook. “At that stage, I didn’t know much about the Foundation. I’d never been sick, so I never needed them. Neuro-fatigue was by far the hardest part of my recovery, so I signed up.” Signing up, he now says, was a key milestone in his recovery.
Soon he was receiving weekly calls from a peer-to-peer support volunteer with the Foundation, a man who also loved hiking and the outdoors, and who rang every Friday morning just to check how his week had gone.
It meant a lot. He wasn’t telling me I was ‘brilliant’ or ‘doing great’ just for the sake of it. It was real conversation, not sympathy, not pity. I needed that.
He met others through the course, some stroke survivors, some volunteers. Those connections became important friendships. “I’d spent months feeling like I was the only person dealing with this. Hearing other people say the same things, the fatigue, the fear, the frustration, that changed everything.”
He went on to become part of the Irish Heart Foundations Young Stroke Survivors Network (YSSN), which is a support community for people under 65 who have had a stroke. It offers peer support, information, fitness classes, social meetups, return-to-work programmes, and practical resources to help members recover and connect with others facing similar challenges. “You panic in those early months. You want someone to tell you that you’re going to get better. And hearing from people ahead of you in the journey really helps.”
Kieran has had the opportunity to participate in other activities on behalf of the Foundation. Public speaking once came naturally to him but it’s something he’s had to rebuild cautiously. “Speaking to four hundred people at the Life After Stroke Conference in Dublin in 2025 was terrifying but extremely rewarding. It felt like I was doing something meaningful again.”
He has also taken part in training for Early Supported Discharge (ESD) teams “to try and explain what it was like going through stroke, giving clinicians insight to the patient experience,” and has contributed to discussions about stroke rehabilitation. He now gives back what he once needed which was reassurance and support in navigating new challenges and situations.
Four years after his stroke, Kieran appears well. But appearance, he says, can be misleading. “People often comment on how well I have recovered from my stroke. A full recovery from a brain injury like mine rarely happens, sadly. I experience emotional latency, but it lasts much longer for me than it does for someone who hasn’t had a stroke; this snowballs into neuro-fatigue and makes personal relationships difficult at times. I have a processing speed deficit, which means I process information differently from someone who hasn’t experienced a brain injury. Following a recent neuropsychological assessment, I’ve learned that I am retaining the information I take in – it simply takes a little longer to be stored and become accessible in my memory. This has given me a significant confidence boost, as it confirms that my ability to learn and retain information is still there. Going forward, I want to build on that knowledge and continue developing greater confidence in my abilities”.
He approaches work differently now, pacing himself, measuring progress, and knowing when to step back. “People talk about the invisible disability, and that’s exactly it. You can walk and talk, and people think you’re fine, but that’s not the case. That’s my life now, and all I can do is use the tools given to me from the ESD team, the National Rehabilitation Hospital and the Irish Heart Foundation to do my best. I always try and allocate a day each week to myself to reset my brain and digest what I’ve taken in. I get some time walking, hiking or just being beside the sea, listening to music.”
Since the stroke Kieran has had a heart procedure to repair the PFO. He continues to challenge himself and has had many achievements, but it hasn’t been without effort. “Some things you have to work on, they don’t just get better on their own”. He has continued to keep active and study, completing many professional programs including one about cognitive physiology, and he plans to complete a second master’s at college in the coming years. He completed the Dublin City Marathon in 2022, and returned to racing karts that same year, competing in local club events. This year’s plan is to complete a bigger portion of the Portuguese Camino, having completed a section last year.
“The Irish Heart Foundation has been brilliant for me. The work that they do is incredible for people who have gone through Stroke, Heart failure and cardiac issues, I am forever grateful for the support the team and my peers have given me. I will always support them in whatever way I can in the future.”
Most importantly “to my friends and family, thank you for your patience, love, and unwavering support throughout my recovery from stroke. It has meant more to me than I can put into words”.