For Roscommon woman Margaret McCarthy, World MS Day is an important opportunity to raise awareness of multiple sclerosis and highlight the different stages and experiences that can come with the condition.
World MS Day is marked globally each year on May 30. This year’s global theme is diagnosis, recognising that receiving an MS diagnosis can be life-changing and can bring uncertainty, questions and emotion.
In Ireland, MS Ireland is marking World MS Day 2026 through its national campaign, ‘MS Journeys: Many Faces, One Community’. The campaign is sharing stories from people living with MS across Ireland throughout May, highlighting that every person’s journey is different while reflecting the strength, resilience and connection found within the MS community.
Margaret’s story is being shared as part of the campaign. For her, World MS Day matters because “it is an opportunity to highlight the various stages that can be encountered and provide encouragement and support to those who are struggling”.
Living with MS has meant learning to adapt and maintain a positive outlook.
“I am constantly adapting and always endeavouring to have a positive attitude to life,” she said.
While MS has changed her life in profound ways, Margaret remains focused on what life can still offer.
“I am permanently immobile and dependent, but still able to enjoy many pleasures of life,” she said.
Her advice to someone newly diagnosed is clear and hopeful: “Realise that your world has not ended but changed. Live your life to the full and engage in your community.”
Margaret said the support of family, friends and the local community has been very important throughout her MS journey. She also values being treated as she always was and said it is “a learning experience to meet with others living with MS, whether in person or online”.
She said MS Ireland’s online supports and information have been invaluable.
Margaret also wants to highlight accessibility and the need for greater awareness of disability, saying one of the things that has surprised her most is “the failure of the wider community to recognise barriers created by disability”.
Her message to others living with MS is simple: “Go for it.”
