Terry Prone: We thought we’d consigned it to history but beware — polio is back

We have all but forgotten how polio devastated lives in the 1950s and must heed warnings from New York, London, and the HSE

Children with polio being treated at St Mary's Orthopaedic Hospital in Cork in 1956 during the city's polio outbreak. The HSE is alerting medics to the possibility of its return. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive

Polio and glorious summers. The deadly association — once the norm — has nearly been forgotten in Ireland. This is understandable since Ireland’s last polio epidemic happened in Cork in 1955.

Back then, it was terrifying. It particularly struck schoolchildren, sometimes paralysing their chest muscles so they couldn’t breathe, sometimes crippling their legs, creating an individual and a family tragedy, leaving children changed for life. Calipers. Crutches. Wheelchairs.