EXCLUSIVE | 

Conman with 100 convictions wins prestigious literary prize for the second year

Limerick man Pat Sheedy (54) says, ‘prison saved my life’

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A prisoner jailed after a series of cons linked to his chronic gambling addiction has turned his life around behind bars and won a prestigious literary prize for the second year running.

Limerick man Pat Sheedy (54) was at his lowest ebb when he was jailed for posing as a documentary maker and a government representative to defraud companies of cash.

But this week he was honoured at the Listowel Writers Week for his creative writing skills, which he learned behind bars, and for using his time in prison as a journey of recovery and a ‘new beginning.’

Accepting the prize, Pat, who is completing his sentence at Loughan House open prison, said he hadn’t been as nervous since the morning he got locked up.

“This is a truly humbling experience. I’m 54 years old and not all of my life has been an entirely honest journey. I wouldn’t be where I am if it was. If you told me three years ago that I was going to end up in prison I would have believed you, if you told me I would be standing here tonight I wouldn’t have.”

Addressing a crowd including actor Stephen Rea, Sheedy, who has more than 100 convictions, said prison has changed his life and described his outlook as ‘brighter.’

“To say my life hasn’t turned out exactly as I planned as an ambitious teenager is an understatement. I won’t go into detail but my life has been largely controlled by a hideous gambling addiction which has caused me to go down paths that I didn’t want to go down.

“And there was an inevitability that I would end up in prison. This time three years ago I was a mess. I had disgraced myself and my family and friends. I financially harmed other people to feed my addiction and physically I was morbidly obese and I didn’t think I had a future.”

Sheedy said he was in prison a few weeks when he decided to go to school as he was too obese to work.

“I went to school and stuck with the creative writing teacher and she changed my life. I was in a treatment centre in 2010 and an addiction counsellor said I’d lived a fascinating life and there was a book in me and I decided that as I wasn’t doing anything else for the years to follow I might as well write.”

He told the crowd: “I’m in a far better place than I’ve ever been. It took me 54 years to get here but there you go. I haven’t that long left in prison and I was worried about the future but my outlook is now a lot brighter thanks to the education units and the help and encouragement I’ve got in prison.”

In 2022 a court heard that Sheedy had pretended he was making a documentary for RTE when he conned an electronics company out of €13,000 and said he was working for the Department of Eduction when he conned an educational supplies company out of €10,000.

At Dublin Circuit Criminal Court he was sentenced to 15 months in jail but was already serving another sentence imposed at Limerick Circuit Court.

Justice Martin Nolan said Sheedy had 97 previous convictions, the majority of which were for fraud. He once pretended he was working for Virgin Media to deceive Apple into lending him iPhones.

Prison educator Tom Shortt, a brother of comedian Pat, said that Sheedy was his ideal student who embraced creative writing as a tool in his recovery.