New signing George O'Callaghan has confirmed that his illness during his trial spell with Town was meningitis, contrary to statements put out by Cork City at the time. The midfielder, who made his Town debut on Saturday, was initially struck down with shingles which led to him developing viral meningitis.

News of the Irishman's illness first broke in October when Burnley's James O'Connor wished the then Cork midfielder a swift recovery from the illness in a Sky Sports interview after the Clarets had defeated Preston North End in a live game.

Cork boss Damien Richardson subsequently denied O'Connor's claim: “He had a touch of shingles but there was no meningitis or anything like that. He was only in hospital for a couple of days.”

However, O'Callaghan, speaking in the Irish press over the weekend, says Richardson was hiding the truth: “I think they might have wanted to keep it quiet as they wanted to sell me. I lost a lot of weight because I wasn't able to eat in hospital.”

The 27-year-old's spell with his home town club ended after he was fined by Richardson for being sent off for two fouls on Bohemians winger John Paul Kelly — a one-time Town trialist — in an Eircom League game last June.

O'Callaghan denies that he was the instigator of the resulting quarrel which ultimately led to his move to the Blues: "The only thing I did really was challenge Damien about what he had said about me and I was told, 'There's the gates, go' and I said, 'fine'.

"I wasn't going to back down until he apologised, and Damien said he wasn't until I apologised to him. But I had nothing to apologise to him for, I just think the club didn't know how to handle it."

O'Callaghan has also criticised Cork for using regular injections to get him through games while he had an ankle injury: "I was taking a couple of injections every week just to play.

'When the injury came the games got harder - and that's when they started saying I didn't want to play for Cork."

O'Callaghan finally joined the Blues last week after a four-month trial for a fee of £50,000 plus a pre-season friendly.

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