President Michael D Higgins has paid tribute to nurses in Ireland and around the world on International Nurses Day, praising their "irreplaceable contribution" to health and wellbeing.
The annual celebration takes place on the birthday of Florence Nightingale, and the theme this year is Nurses: A Voice to Lead - A Vision for Future Healthcare.
The tens of thousands of nurses who work in different disciplines and in different locations throughout the country have faced unprecedented challenges in the past year.
Mary Elizabeth Jones is a clinical nurse manager in the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in Dublin. As the pandemic took hold, she had to quickly change gears, moving from working on a cardiothoracic ward to one treating