Getting out of bed, walking through the front door, hanging out the washing, lifting the handbrake - the failure to complete such everyday activities can spark a "dark day" for Margaret Duffy. As the tide of motor neurone disease advances in on Margaret, she surrenders ever increasing territory of her life, never to be reclaimed.

"The day I went to hang out the clothes, I couldn't open the clothes peg," recalls Margaret, sitting at her kitchen table in her spotless bungalow, a few miles from Kingscourt. "Another night someone came to the front door and coming back in I realised I didn't have the balance to lift my foot onto the step. So I had to come around to the back door. And that will set you back. I came in here and sat in the chair for an hour and didn't even speak.

Full story in this week's Anglo-Celt.