Road and track cyclist Cathal Miller was Team Ireland's flag bearer at the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympic Games today.
The Paralympic flame was carried in an overnight relay by over 500 torchbearers from Stoke Mandeville and arrived at the stadium at Stratford in east London this evening.
The torchbearers carried the flame from the stadium at Stoke Mandeville, the spiritual home of the Paralympic Games, to the National Spinal Injuries Centre in the village.
The teams of five then began the journey to London.
Games makers, the volunteers behind the Olympic and Paralympic Games, stood in their purple and red uniforms alongside other cheering spectators.
Ireland's squad of 49 athletes is competing across ten sports.
Almost 2.5 million games tickets have been sold so far, making this the biggest Paralympics ever.
Around 10,000 more tickets will be made available for each day of the games.
The first Paralympic Games were held in Rome in 1960.
Stoke Mandeville co-hosted the games with New York in 1984, when they took over the running of the wheelchair events after Illinois pulled out at the last minute, but 2012 marks the first time the whole Paralympics has been staged in the UK.
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