Ciaran Carolan, lying in Brisbane hospital bandaged from his severe burn injuries and reading a recent copy of The Avondhu. ”No matter how tough things get, there's always time to catch up on home news", he says.

For many of us, June 30 was merely another day in the calendar, but for Mitchelstown native Ciaran Carolan, it was a day that will change the course of his life forever, as he awoke in the middle of the night to find the sleeping bag around his legs alight.

Ciaran (the son of Micheal and Mary Carolan) was a plasterer by trade before the collapse of the construction industry in Ireland and he went to Australia for the first time in January 2013.

He went to a cattle property to do his three months second year visa work and it really made an impression on him. After a brief spate in Europe, he went back to the same place and has been working on the property, mustering cattle since 2015.

Coverage in this week’s print edition