Farmer who fought eviction for a year agrees deal with bank

A FATHER of five who barricaded himself into his home for a year after he was threatened with eviction has finally reached an agreement with the bank that will allow his family stay in their home.

Unemployed farmer Seamus Sherlock has been fighting his eviction since he barricaded himself into Appletown farm in Feoghanagh, Co Limerick on August 16th last, after receiving an eviction notice from his bank due to outstanding mortgage repayments.

The Life After Debt campaigner made national headlines in 2010 when he chained himself to the railings outside ESB headquarters in Dublin after his power supply was cut off.

For the past 12 months he refused to leave his home in Co Limerick where hundreds of people from across the country came to offer him support.

After receiving the eviction notice on behalf of Bank of Scotland the unemployed father blocked the main driveway to his home with 40 bales of hay wrapped in plastic piled behind the main gate to the property.

Mr Sherlock, who ran as an independent candidate in Co Limerick in the last general election, has been unemployed for the last three years.

He previously worked in the fuel business and as a farmer.

Throughout his campaign the separated father, insisted he fully intended to pay back his loan to the bank.

He claimed he had lodged a significant amount of his money with his solicitor as part of a rescue package and was trying to work this out with the bank.

Speaking yesterday the father of five would not divulge the details of the agreement reached with the bank but said he plans to use his new freedom to continue helping others struggling with debt.

“There is a lot of people out there looking for help and I will be able to go out there and meet them in their homes... I use to represent people in court just more or less on an advisory level. That was something I wasn’t able to do for the last twelve months and there is a lot of poeple out there now looking for help and we will do everything we can do help them,” he said.

“Hopefully I might got away for a couple of days somewhere not too far with the kids more or less to wind down,” he added.

Mr Sherlock said he and he is very proud of his five children who stood with him over the past twelve months,

“It couldn’t have been easy for them to be in the lime light like that. But we got there and God is good and there is a future there,” he added.