"To be honest, I didn't have a formal education and I'm partially dyslexic."
"But as my mother used to say, 'it doesn't matter if you can spell the words son, if you've got a story -tell it'."
Glenn Gannon is a 64-year-old man living in Clondalkin who has lived an extraordinary life.
His story begins similarly to many of those who grew up in inner-city Dublin during the 50s when men struggled to find work.
And impoverished women and children were packed into industrial schools and Magdalene laundries like sardines.
Glenn began life in the heart of the Liberties: "I was born in a tenement house by paraffin lamp because we didn't have electricity.
"It was an old house on Chancery lane in 1952 which is 64 years ago now.
"We moved from there to Dolphin's House in Dublin 8 - just off Rialto.
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"Things were pretty bad back then, a lot of men left to get work in England and that's what my father had to do.
"My mother and I had to go out selling flowers and I grew up without schooling."
Glenn’s family was split and his mum was struggling to keep her head above water with her husband abroad and a child to raise alone.
The dad-of-two said his mum wasn’t able to cope: "she had a nervous breakdown because my dad had to leave, so we ended up in the notorious Goldenbridge."
St Vincent’s Industrial School, or as it’s better known, Goldenbridge is now synonymous with the physical and emotional abuse suffered by victims of church-run homes at the time.
Children were often beaten and neglected by staff but the abuse was never reported on officially until the early 90s.
Commenting on his experience in Goldenbridge, Glenn said: "Above the door in Dante's inferno it says 'Abandon all hope ye who enter here' and in Golden bridge that would have been perfectly placed - because it was hell on earth!"
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"I saw things that you'd only see in your worst nightmare.
“We were five years in there but then my dad came back from England and got us all back together again and we just tried to move on without lives as best we could.
Life began to improve for Glenn and his family and after his years of flower selling with his mum he says it was inevitable that he would go into sales of some description as he entered adulthood.
He said: "I operated some stalls in the Liberty market and eventually I got the money together to open a shop in Meath St. and it was doing very well.
"At one stage, I had eight members of my family working for me and it was a very successful business.
Despite his success, Glenn was thrown what he describes as a “curve-ball” in 1997.
He said: "Everything went wrong at the same time - sales weren't doing so well so eventually I had to sell my shop.
"I was struggling with bills, my marriage was on the rocks and my parents were both seriously ill at the same time.
"And then within one year from 1997 to 1998, I'd lost my marriage, I lost my dad and I lost my mum - everything just hit.”
During this time, Glenn began drinking to drown his sorrows and inevitably his alcoholism took over his life.
Glenn said “I started off staying with friends and going from couch to couch but eventually I found myself out on the streets of Rialto at three in the morning not knowing where to go.
“But I was lucky - because I met this homeless man who recognised me and he basically took me under his wing and looked after me.
“I told him I’d only be out on the streets for a week or two and he said, ‘I told myself that 25 years ago’."
This helpful homeless character was Tommy and he would become one of Glenn's most valued friends.
But Glenn’s “two weeks” on the streets, turned into a month, turned into a year and so on until his alcoholism developed into an addiction to prescription medication.
He said: “When you’re on the streets you become cross addicted because you just want the pain to stop – you’ll take anything to make the pain stop.
“I’d try get valium or anything like that – I didn’t take intravenous drugs but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t dependant on substances to get me from one day to the next - I was.
“I felt like such a failure – not only had I lost my business, my family, my wife, my parents – but I’d lost my dignity aswell."
Along with the loneliness, the addiction and the battles with his own internal demons, Glenn had to be aware of the dangers surrounding him on the streets.
“People forget how terrifying life on the streets can be – I had a friend and while him and his brother were asleep in a lane way one night they were set on fire by some thugs.
“The brother died instantly and my friend died the following year.
“There was another couple that I knew in Rialto and they were both set on fire while they were asleep in a skip one night – it’s a horrific but common occurrence!”
"Trying to stay alive is your main preoccupation – if the weather in winter isn’t going to kill you then some fella with a bottle of lighter fluid and a match will – you’re always looking over shoulder.”
The three years on the streets were desolate but it wasn't until the turn of the Millennium that Glenn hit rock bottom with the passing of his only friend, Tommy.
It was then Glenn experienced what he would describe as the worst pain in the world.
“It’s the loneliness – the loneliness is what drives so many over the edge and that’s exactly what I experienced when Tommy died.
Tommy was around 55 years of age when he died and he had spent nearly 30 years living on the streets.
“He died in a phone box in Rialto, alone - just trying to keep in out of the cold.”
It was hard for Glenn to know that Tommy had died alone and freezing: “I contemplated suicide several times and I remember one of those times being New Years Eve in 1999.
“I didn’t know it was New Years Eve, I didn’t even know what a Millennium was until a guy who gave me cigarette told me.
“I couldn’t believe that three years had gone by so fast and I was facing such a bleak future.
“I was on my own and I knew that I was either going to die or I had to do something - so I went to rehab.”
Glenn checked himself into to a well known rehab centre in Athy, Co. Kildare called Cuan Mhuire where he met Eileen Fitzgerald, better known as Sr. Consilio.
She was a pioneering Sister of Mercy who was the first person to provide residential treatment for those suffering with addiction.
In 1965 she convinced the nuns at Cuan Mhuire to allow her to turn the dairy of the convent into a ‘drop-in centre’ for those who would walk the roads.
This Kerry nun has dedicated her life to helping the homeless and addicted and over the years it's estimated tens of thousands like Glenn have come to her for help.
“She’s a saviour of mine and 75,000 other people in the 50 years that centre has been open.
“She’s an unsung hero as far as I’m concerned, she took me in to this ‘tough-love’ facility which is clearly just what I needed.
“Here I was this inner-city guy in the middle of nowhere asked to milk the cows and I mean I’m from a block of flats – my milk came from Tescos!”
“But I was sent to the farm to learn and I spent nine months there 'drying out' and getting myself together.
It was here Glenn uncovered his passion for helping others.
Shifting the focus away from himself and trying to help those in need gave him a sense of worthiness that Glenn hadn’t experienced in years.
He said: “I would go to visit the new arrivals to the centre with a few others and we would quite literally spoon feed those who were too weak to feed themselves.
“It really made me feel useful – like I was somebody again and I could help.
“My ex-wife came to visit me while I was down there and we’re still good friends to this day.
“So when it was time to leave she offered me the spare bedroom in the family home and she said that if I kept myself sober I could stay there until I got myself on my feet.
After he came out of rehab he also met with Christine Buckley who set up the Aislinn society for victims of the infamous Goldenbridge industrial school.
Glenn had previously met Christine when they were children at Goldenbridge and now they were meeting again as she was fast becoming a legendary advocate for the victims of industrial schools.
Christine sadly passed away in March 2014 but her life has had a positive influence on so many, no more than Glenn Gannon.
He said: "I went to the Aislinn society in the year 2000 to try and get my education - and she suggested I take drama classes and I said jokingly 'why would I do that, my whole life's been a drama?'"
"She told me 'All actors need a background and you've definitely got a background!' - I didn't quite know what I was getting into but I joined the drama class there and Colin Farrell's drama coach was the teacher there."
"But I didn't have a clue who Colin Farrell was at the time!"
In December of 2000, the Aislinn society performed a showcase for a live audience and Collin Farrell's brother, Eamonn who is the director of the National Performing Art's School along with Jill Doyle were in attendance.
"They saw me in this production, playing a drunken Dub."
Glenn laughs at the irony of himself playing a character he had technically been rehearsing for years.
"But they thought I had something that should be encouraged - so they offered me a place in their performing arts school, fondly known as 'The Factory'."
"They were so wonderful and they really encouraged me."
"I remember telling them I didn't think I could afford it but they said, 'it's not that expensive and we'll take care of it and you can pay us back when you're famous' - so I'm working towards that."
From playing a “drunken dub” Glenn went on to act alongside Oscar winner Julianne Moore and Pearse Brosnan in Laws of Attraction.
“I was in this mock up of a 747 pretending to fly to New York and I’m sitting beside Julianne Moore and Pearse Brosnan and it was just utterly surreal.
“I kept thinking someone was going to come out and ask me to leave because they realised I was homeless a few months ago.
“I was always looking over my shoulder and pinching myself thinking I’m going to wake up in a lane way somewhere and realise the whole thing wasn’t real!"
After Laws of Attraction, the rising talent went on to star alongside Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy in Becoming Jane.
He recalled Anne calling him ‘darling’ as he held her hand to help her in her heels as they walked along the cobble streets outside the Kings Inns where they were filming.
He said: “Again, it was so surreal but after a few years of acting and getting myself on on my feet I felt it was time to start writing the book: ‘Miracle Man: From Homeless to Hollywood'.”
“It’s a simple story, it doesn’t try to be literary or academic- it’s just a simple story told by a simple man.
Given Glenn’s experience in Cuan Mhuire and his desire to help those in need he decided to join the Simon Community as a volunteer and 15 years on he’s now an ambassador for the charity.
“To be made ambassador was, for me, like going full circle, I’m now helping the people who helped me - it really is an incredibly important part of my life.
Glenn will be giving a percentage of the book profits to the Dublin Simon Community as a token of his appreciation for their help to him and to the countless other homeless people they’ve saved over the years.
Since last year, The Miracle Man has been to 50 secondary schools across the country, giving talks on his experience with homelessness.
One of the main questions he gets asked by the students is ‘who are the homeless?’:
“I tell them they’re somebody’s son, somebody’s daughter or somebody’s mother or somebody’s father and as long as you remember that, then you’ll see them as people and not as statistics.
“I think that’s the problem with the government and government agencies - that they see these people as statistics and they lose sight of the fact that they’re dealing with broken people – and that broken people need more than just financial help – they need mental health help as well.”
Glenn is considering turning his book into a screenplay and says if there were one actor that could play him perfectly it would be Colin Farrell.
“He’s a terrific actor and plus he’s a Dub and has had his own experience with addiction so I think I’d love him to play me in the film.
He laughs: “But I’d have to play Tommy, there’s no doubt about it!"
Glenn’s book will be out in bookstores in the UK and Ireland in three weeks and the homeless hero said the book is an ode to the homeless friend who kept him strong during his time on the streets of Rialto.
“He’s on almost every page to be honest with you, and even though he was a big, tough Dub he was what I would call a real intellectual – he just had knowledge about things no one else had.”
“He once told me: ‘the measure of a man’s worth in this world, is not what he leaves behind him, it’s what he gives to society while he’s alive’ and that’s something I’ve carried with me and always will.”
Dublin Lives