Noel Magnier, 67, a polio survivor from Cork, remembered when the first child died of the disease in St Finbarr's Hospital, where a regional polio centre had been established. "There was such terror, that people would cross the road when they went by the hospital, for fear of catching it, " he said.

Maureen O'Sullivan was 23 when she contracted the disease in December 1953.

"One night I had a high fever and was restless, " she recalled. "A couple of days later my leg just went from under me and I couldn't move it."

O'Sullivan, now 76, counts herself as "one of the lucky ones." She was discharged on crutches after six months.

She returned to her job with Cork city council, and by the time the 1956 epidemic broke out, she was walking unaided with the back-up of two physiotherapy sessions a week.

"I was horrified by the 1956 outbreak, because I kind of knew what people were facing and it was almost always happening to little children, " she said. O'Sullivan remembered walking home from work one evening in the summer of 1956, "and there wasn't a single child playing on the street. It was eerie."

"People always remember the polio epidemic in Cork because it was the very last of its kind in the country, thankfully, " she said. The following year, the polio vaccination arrived in Ireland and the disease was eradicated from the country.

Post Polio Support Group: 01873 0338 and www. ppsg. ie