SUPPOSE some people might think it is silly or odd to choose your husband as your hero but I've thought about it and reflected on my life and he is the person I most admire. We faced a lot of challenges during the course of our marriage and throughout them all Enda remained constant and strong. No other person has made such an impact on my life. Enda was, is, and will be, the person I most admire.

We met while playing tennis. I was playing in the Hudson Bay Hotel . . . my family's hotel, and he drove up in a car with his friends. He always said that he remembered spying me and saying to himself, 'I'd like to meet her'. And of course, we did meet and we fell in love and started a very passionate affair.

I was studying in UCD but I went home to Athlone on a regular basis and he came to Dublin to see me and we just couldn't get enough of each other. I would die for no one but him and he for no one but me. As soon as I finished my degree I went straight back to Athlone to work in the family hotel and into Enda O'Rourke's arms.

We had quite a lot of rows, the kind of rows couples have when they are young and in love and we both picked up with other people from time to time before we settled down. We got married when I was 22 and he was 24 and in those days we were considered very young and people said that we had no sense and we probably didn't. I remember buying the engagement ring and I was just transfixed by it.

Naturally, I was very keen to have a baby and so was Enda but unlike my sister and brother who had produced a baby after only one year of marriage, we couldn't. Two and three years went by and still nothing and we were young and in love so it wasn't for lack of trying. Eventually I got pregnant and gave birth to Feargal and it was during this period that I really thought Enda was wonderful because I went into a very deep post-natal depression. I felt terrible because this was the child we had longed for and I suddenly couldn't cope with the baby. My friends would ring me and invite me to meet them for coffee and I just thought 'I'll never get out of this house'. Enda was so patient with me and so understanding and in the end I went up to Dublin and was prescribed medication and in a few months I was back to my old self. Enda was very modern, he would always have been looking after Feargal although he didn't push the buggy, but I remember when I would measure out the baby formula he would always remind me to level out the spoon. I always felt we were equal in this enterprise, this marriage of Mary and Enda O'Rourke. A few years later my father suggested I do a HDip and become a teacher and Enda was the first to encourage me to go for it even though it involved travelling back and forth to Maynooth. He looked after Feargal while I went to college. He was very supportive.

A few months after we adopted our second son Aengus, Fianna Fail asked me to stand for my late father's seat but I said no, I wanted to be at home with my children. A few years later they asked again and this time Enda encouraged me to go for it. "Why wouldn't you?" he said. Years later when Charlie Haughey asked me to join the front bench he asked me, "Are you going to be serious about this?" I said that I was and he Itold me that I couldn't be driving up and down every day and advised me to arrange accommodation in Dublin and I thought that was very modern of him. We would speak every day and I would tell him what was going on and he would tell me what was going on in Athlone. He always looked after the constituency for me, which was very important because in politics it is very difficult to trust people completely and of course I had total faith in him.

We had a very harmonious relationship, we were emotionally supportive of each other and of course our sexual relationship was always fantastic which I believe is very important in any marriage.

Then it became my turn to look after him when he entered a period of ill-health and naturally I cared for him as best I could. He will be five years dead on 30 January and my grief is as intense now as it was then. I know I am not alone in feeling this way because I have spoken to other women who have lost their husbands. I think I have just built it into my life. I miss him desperately, I really do. I know it is better to have lived and loved and there are very few real love stories in this world but mine was one and that's why he's my hero.