When Mairead Berry got back with her parents on Wednesday to their home in Coolock it was just like the day they brought her home as a baby, 25 years ago.
"It was electric, wonderful. The whole street was out to welcome us," smiles Lil Berry. "The kids were all over from across in the flats, the neighbours from the road behind were all over. Flowers and cards were arriving all day." Lil gets a little tearful at the memory. "All over to see the miracle baby who had died twice."
The homecoming for the "miracle baby" - who grew up to be the woman described by RTE's Colm Murray in his coverage of the Paralympics from Sydney last month as "Ireland's golden girl" - was perhaps a little more frenzied this time around. She is pretty exhausted this Thursday morning, but less from the feat of winning three medals - one gold and two silver for swimming - in Sydney than from having partied until 4.30 a.m. The story of her first homecoming to the small row of local authority houses at Cromcastle Park is told as Lil recalls her reactions when Mairead was born and she had cerebral palsy.
"Oh, I was delighted she had been born at all. When I fell pregnant with her they were telling me she was dead in the womb. They told me to let nature take its course and that the womb would reject the baby."
Mairead was a rhesus-negative baby, meaning her blood type was incompatible with her mother's. In such a situation the mother develops antibodies which attempt to break down the foetus and can cause anaemia and rejection of the foetus.
"But I kept insisting I could feel life," Lil recalls. "I couldn't bear it because I was after three dead babies before."
She had also had three healthy boys.
"Mairead got a full blood transfusion in the womb. When I was still feeling life they brought me in on Whit Monday for a section. They did the section on Wednesday and she weighed 1 1/2 lbs. She was very sick and stopped breathing twice. There was a team of doctors working on her all night and she was 14 weeks in hospital before she got up to 5lbs. She had 13 blood transfusions in four days. And when we brought her home everyone was dying to see her - the baby who had died twice. "That's what it was like yesterday. We were delighted and proud."
Though Mairead's is a long list of hard-won achievements, none got quite the reaction of that day in June 1975 or again on Wednesday afternoon. "I went through babyhood like anyone else. I was spoilt rotten," grins Mairead. "My brother used to tape up the wheels on my roller skates so when the kids were out playing on their skates I'd sit at the door in my skates, and so I'd be out playing with my skates."
She went to school at the Central Remedial Clinic in Clontarf and it was there she got involved in athletics when she was 12. She was then invited to the Cerebral Palsy Ireland (CPI) Centre in Sandymount and at 15 turned to focus on swimming.
She competed in several events in Ireland before her first big one - the 1992 Paralympics in Barcelona, where she took gold. As she cannot use her legs in the pool - she sort of kneels in the water - her strength is in her upper body.
SINCE Barcelona she has competed in the European Cerebral Palsy Championships in Germany in 1993 (three golds), the World Championships in Malta in 1994 (three golds), the Paralympics in 1996 Atlanta (one silver) and the World Championships in 1998 in New Zealand (two gold and one silver).
When in preparation for New Zealand, she wanted to train in a bigger pool than the 17m one she had been using at CPI. Her hope was to use the 25m pool at a health club in Co Dublin. "But the management said first they needed special insurance. Then they said there would be access problems. I was willing to go down at six in the morning when there'd be no one else around. They said there would be a hygiene problem with the chair's wheels. I just said `forget it' then." Nor has Mairead or her family had much help financially. None of the family has ever travelled with her to a competition and they have had to raise almost every penny themselves to send Mairead abroad.
"We have to fundraise," says Mairead. "You feel like a beggar going back all the time asking for money. It is very difficult. Dad sells tickets, holds raffles and my brother organises pub quizzes."
The family has approached a number of corporate bodies, including the international brand whose swimwear Mairead prefers, and the national hairdressing chain where she has had her hair cut all her life - to no avail.
She has had government grants, though she did not get one for Sydney, having not competed last year, and had to raise £2,000. Among those who did help were the Lions Club in Swords and the local credit union. She trains now at Westwood club in Fairview, where she has been made "very welcome", six days a week. "I'm up at 4.30 a.m. and in the pool by 6 a.m. I do two hours with my coach Leo Green, a mix of warm-up, lengths, sprints and rests."
Management at Westwood confirmed yesterday they did not need special insurance for Mairead.
"I'm home by about nine and I have a big fry and then I work from 12 to 4, as a receptionist. In the evenings I do a lot of stretching. I am usually in bed by about half nine.
"I have had no social life for the past six weeks. When I do go out I like to go to a friend's house or maybe the pub. There's no point in me going to the cinema because I'd just fall asleep."
Asked what events she has coming up, she rubs her forehead, groaning. "Oh I don't know exactly. I have a few competitions next year."
However, no matter how tired it may make her sometimes, swimming gives Mairead a freedom she does not find elsewhere.
"You're able to stretch," she says arching her back and neck. "You feel you're able to go wherever you want to go and use your body to get you there. When I was a kid in school I'd never want to get out of the pool. I think I'm happiest there."
And though she is delighted at the attention and adulation the Paralympians received this week, she's had a long career thus far without it.
"After Barcelona, Atlanta and New Zealand when we brought home loads of medals, there was no minister for sport at the airport, no lord mayor. I don't think there was even a sports journalist. It was very hurtful, made us all very frustrated."
Her hope now is that the welcome may translate into sponsorship and increased Government support for the Paralympians.
"That is the hardest thing at the moment," she says, "trying to do your best for the country and feeling almost no one supports you."