The 50th anniversary of the largest epidemic of polio in Ireland will be remembered today with a special prayer service in Cork.
Poliomyelitis affected many in Ireland during the 1940s and 1950s and in 1956 an epidemic of the condition broke out in Cork.
Nearly 550 patients, most of them children, were brought to hospital presenting fever and paralysis within less than four months. Although the death toll was relatively low, considerable damage occurred to the health of the children affected by it.
Yesterday morning "post-polio survivors" from around the country gathered for a special fundraising breakfast.
Evelyn Wainwright of Togher in Cork, who heads the city branch of the Post-Polio Survivors Group, says the legacy of the outbreak is hugely apparent, with up to 60 per cent of those who contracted the illness as young children now coping with a further debilitating condition, post-polio syndrome.
Jim Costello, chairpwoman of the group, says membership of the organisation increased by more than 10 per cent last year. The prayer service takes place at 11.30am today at the Clarion Hotel, Lapps Quay, Cork.