Whoever heard the like? Two bank holidays one after the other? Really! How quickly we forget. We had two in a row last December. With Christmas Day and St Stephen’s Day on a Saturday and a Sunday, it meant December 27th and 28th were also bank holidays. Even buses rarely come along in fours.
And here we go again with, effectively, another four bank holidays in a row: hail glorious St Patrick’s Day last Thursday; all hail yon wondrous Front-Line-Workers Day yesterday, with Saturday and Sunday tailing behind, as ever.
In just three months we have had two, four-day bank holidays. Remember this for, lo, it is likely you will see a blue moon – or Mayo win an All-Ireland senior football final – before it happens again.
You might say these days mark our collective coming out after two years of varying confinements due to Covid. With the distance of more time we will look back in astonishment at these years and the utterly extraordinary changes they wrought in our lives. Then, now, and to come.
We have lived through an epoc-making time in history, the fall-out from which we hardly yet realise. Our noses have been too hard pressed against the moment to allow for the wider view just yet. Even with it we cannot know the outcome of what has been set in train, for ourselves or the world.
On March 11th 2020 the first Irish person died of Covid at Naas General Hospital followed on March 12th by then-taoiseach Leo Varadkar announcing, from Washington, the closure of schools, colleges, and child care facilities. Closure of pubs and restaurants followed with a ban on house parties, and a national `stay-at-home' order on March 27th. Phew!
Only two years on, it seems as remote now as it is so shockingly remarkable. More so, even, than at the time.
These days we remember all those 6,300-plus people lost to Covid in Ireland of the approximately 1.4 million of us who contracted the virus, including myself.
Let us be grateful to our truly wonderful health care workers and medical personnel generally who saw the vast majority of us safely thus far. And let us acknowledge too our frequently maligned politicians whose leadership helped ensure more of us didn’t die.
Gratitude, from Latin gratus, for `thankful'.
inaword@irishtimes.com
