Ronald McDonald House is home away from home for families with hospitalised kids

Ronald McDonald House provides ‘a sense of normal’ for families with children confined to hospital in Dublin, writes Deirdre Reynolds.

When Sandra and Brendan Ryan discovered their baby daughter needed life-saving heart surgery, life as they knew it changed for good.

Already parents of two little boys, the Cork couple welcomed baby sister Kate to the clan last December, after a pregnancy scan revealed she had hypoplastic left heart syndrome, which would require a string of gruelling surgeries to repair.