Step this way: Nordic walking helps to ease Parkinson's 

A husband-and-wife team - one an Everest veteran, the other a retired nurse - runs special walking courses for people with Parkinson’s disease. Lorna Siggins meets a determined group of walkers at a training session in Dublin   

Tony and Joanne Burke of Nordic Fitness Ireland. Photograph Moya Nolan

Amid carpets of cowslip and primroses, beneath beech, oak and giant redwood trees, a determined group of walkers tackle a hill under Dublin’s Three Rock mountain.

“Small steps, slow it down, swing your arms,” says mountaineer, runner and Everest veteran Tony Burke, gently reminding the group that this is not a competition.