‘Mum and I are positive. Life is as it is and we are happy’

Doctors thought Dutch-born Johanna Canty was being an overprotective mother when she became concerned that her daughter, Petronella, might not be a typical clumsy toddler.

“I always knew there was something wrong with Petronella because she was always falling over her own feet since she was two-years-old but the doctors would not believe me,” said Johanna, from Midleton, Co Cork.

When Petronella was 15-years-old, she became seriously disabled. That was more than 30 years ago and her mother has been her carer ever since.