Charlie Bird has revealed how he recognised his symptoms of Motor Neurone's disease from a past visit to his late friend in RTE, Colm Murray.
Legendary RTE Sport reporter Colm passed away in 2013 after battling for three years with the disease.
Charlie received his diagnosis in November after noticing that he was having issues with his voice.
Since that day, he has been very public with his battle, inspiring thousands in doing so.
On April 2, he and a whole host of friends, including Ryan Tubridy, Davy Fitzgerald and Vicky Phelan, will climb Croagh Patrick to raise funds for the Irish Motor Neurone's Disease and Pieta House.
However, he told RSVP Magazine that his initial diagnosis was not a massive surprise, explaining: "I knew before I was diagnosed that I had motor neurones. The reason I knew is I had a good friend in RTE called Colm Murray who had the disease. I used to visit him, I used to sit with him, I remember thinking, I wouldn’t be able to cope with that, and here I am now."
The former RTE Washington Correspondent told the publication that he was "amazed" by how quickly Climb with Charlie came together.
He said: “I am totally amazed by what is happening with Climb with Charlie. Climbing Croagh Patrick with all these people was never on the agenda.
"It started with a group of friends who I worked with in RTE, they all now live in the West of Ireland and we have a WhatsApp group called The West Awake and I mentioned Croagh Patrick and bang - the whole thing has gone mad.
"I never in my life thought it was going to get this big and now it has become a mission statement for me and I will be honest, while we all know we are going to die some day, I now know it is going to be soon, so I wanted to do something useful and positive to help people. And that is what I am doing.”
