The charity receives very little Government funding and relies mainly on fundraising and donations to continue to provide its free cancer support and education services.

She discovered a breast lump, and her doctor immediately sent her to Beaumont Hospital in the north of Dublin city for a biopsy where she was told that it was cancer even before tests were run.

A year later, in September 1997, she was told that the cancer had gone but, because she rarely did her exercises, she developed lymphedema in her legs, and in the following month, she began to experience back pain and returned to hospital.

An MRI scan revealed that she had cancer along her spinal cord so she began radiotherapy which she had completed in January 1998.

[4] After her death, the charity was founded in her memory by her family including daughter Linda, sons, Ronan, Gary, Gerard, Ciaran and her husband Gerry, in 1998 initially giving advice and support to those diagnosed with breast cancer.