March 18th, 2020

My favourite bit of the archive on this site is the link that says “on this day”. It’s of no interest to anyone except me, but I love going through this little time tunnel.

Using that link this month gives me a flashback to March five years ago when The Situation was unfolding.

I remember the build-up at the end of February. We were in Galway for a birthday weekend getaway. One morning in the hotel I saw the papers were running a story that seemed so Irish to me: because of this emerging virus, people were no longer to give the “sign of peace” at mass (that’s the bit where you awkwardly shake hands with the people around you). I chuckled. Nervously.

Then we were leaving Ireland, in the taxi to the airport in Dublin the radio was on. A medical professional was urging the cancellation of the St. Patrick’s Day parade because a grand total of 2 or 3 people in the country had this virus. The DJ reacted with incredulity. It sounded like a pretty far-fetched idea to me too, because St. Patrick’s Day was just over two weeks away.

The St. Patrick’s Day parade was cancelled.

Throughout The Situation I was keeping track of things in Ireland. It was like seeing an A/B test unfolding. Everything that England was doing wrong, Ireland was doing the opposite. It wasn’t quite New Zealand, but they put scientists front and centre of their decision-making precision. Whereas here, policy was driven by wishful thinking.

I was writing about it all here on my website. I also started recording a tune every day for 200 days. Here’s the first one. See how fresh-faced I am? I decided to stop shaving during lockdown. After six weeks, I looked like this.

But to really recall what that time was like, I recommend reading Jessica’s account of 2020. The first entry is called A Journal of the Plague Week and it was published five years ago. The final entry was A Journal of the Plague Week 52 a year later.