War-torn Syria to Mullingar: One barber’s tale of battling with adversity

By Claire Corrigan

When a young Syrian boy aged 12, was forced to flee his home town and his country, with his parents and two sisters, because of terrible casualties in the civil war that began there nine years ago, he little realised he would be in Mullingar for Christmas 2020, trying to make a success of his own hairdressing business, and a great admirer of Mullingar people and of Ireland.