Aged 15, Charlie Beaudelot worked hard in school, spending hours after class studying at home. It was third year, the Junior Cert exams were just around the corner and Beaudelot was laser-focused on their career path, wanting to study either law or medicine after graduation.
But this was 2020, and within several weeks of the Covid pandemic shutting down the country, they realised their future plans did not match their ambitions or desires at all.
“I really got into nutrition during the lockdowns and it was just one straight moment, I realised this was something I wanted to do. I was talking to my dad, who has type two diabetes, about nutrition and he asked why didn’t I study it. And I just realised that was perfect for me,” Beaudelot says.
“I’m now studying human nutrition and dietetics at Trinity College and Technological University Dublin; it’s a joint course. I had always wanted to get into healthier living and the pandemic just meant I had time to sit down and focus on who I am and what I want.”
Last Wednesday marked five years since the then taoiseach Leo Varadkar addressed the people of Ireland from a podium in Washington DC, announcing the effective shutdown of the State.
What began for many as a novel two weeks of staying at home, perhaps baking banana bread and watching Netflix, became, for most people, several years of emotional turmoil as Ireland cycled in and out of restrictions.
Although life has more or less returned to normal, for many people the consequences of these restrictions are still being felt.
For Beaudelot, the pandemic gave them new hobbies and a new life direction. But it was also very difficult.
“I didn’t have a phone at the time so I was isolated from my peers. I felt very lonely, I didn’t have social media and I lived in very rural Offaly,” they say.
This, Beaudelot says, motivated them to engage with youth groups and to take up sewing. They now sew their own clothes, with a focus on sustainability.
But the changes for some other young people were not as positive, according to Emer Smyth, research professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) who has examined the pandemic impact on young people.
Prof Smyth’s research looked at children who were aged 12 during the pandemic and followed up on their wellbeing after the public health emergency.
“We see over time there has been a very significant increase in at-risk for depression rates among young people. There was a significant group in young people who, even after schools resumed, were still seeing their friends much less than usual, with these children tending to have poorer wellbeing,” she says.
“There has been a dramatic rise in school absence levels, especially at primary level and especially in more disadvantaged schools. I think there are a number of reasons why, but this could be the wellbeing patterns manifesting that in school avoidance.”
Similarly for younger children, a recent study of junior-infant teachers by researchers at Mary Immaculate College found the current classes of junior infants may not be faring as well as children born before the pandemic.
The research, which surveyed 107 junior-infant teachers who teach more than 2,000 pupils, found 81 per cent of teachers said they have more pupils now with emotional and behavioural issues compared to pre-pandemic times.
These children were born during the pandemic, just like Bróna Coggins’s second son Mason, who was born on March 20th, 2020.
Coggins says she’s very happy with Mason’s development and sociability, though she was worried about the impact the pandemic restrictions would have on him in this way. The hurt caused by the maternity restrictions she endured while she was giving birth, however, is something with which she still contends.
“It definitely ruined that newborn joy in some ways,” she says. “It was literally just after the maternity restrictions were imposed. I was one of the first. There was a lot of anxiety in the lead-up to it, even though I was a second-time mum.”
She was scheduled to undergo a Caesarean section but began to go into labour naturally the night before. Her husband had to sit in the car while she was “in labour in the emergency room by myself”.
I remember when we were doing a drive-through Covid vaccine clinic and there was this 90-year-old man and he asked if he could give me a hug
— Dr Tadgh Crowley
“Somehow he was allowed up to the room for the birth but he had to leave immediately. Mason was born, he kissed him and walked out the door. I recall the nurses crying; they just said it feels so unnatural,” she says.
Coggins said she had a difficult time on her first C-section so she was “quite apprehensive about the second one”.
“To see John walk down the corridor within moments of Mason being born was very tough. I was in for the three days, and he wasn’t allowed back in. I can’t imagine what it was like for a mum going through a C-section for the first time,” she adds.
Coggins says she wheeled her own suitcase out of the hospital and her baby was carried by healthcare staff who passed Mason to John once they met him outside the Rotunda hospital in Dublin’s north inner city. “It just didn’t really feel safe,” she adds.
And while there was new life during the pandemic years when children were born, there were also significant losses – which was felt even more acutely due to the way in which people were unable to come together to grieve.
A report by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC), published in April 2024, found the total number of Covid-19 patients who died during the pandemic years was just under 10,000.
Tadgh Crowley, who has been a GP since 1997, vividly remembers the first patient he treated who died from the virus.
“That was one of the points in my Covid story that made me realise this was very serious. I suddenly realised we’re under pressure in terms of making it through alive,” he recalls.
The Kilkenny doctor’s working hours became significantly longer than usual; often he worked 16- or 17-hour days.
“Clinically you were busy, and it was a different type of work. My working day extended quite a lot but it was interesting and difficult, but you can’t keep doing that forever,” he says.
Consequently, he says: “I have an appreciation of time off and family now. I like being involved with sports teams, I like looking after myself in terms of exercise. I enjoy my time off probably more than I would have 10 years ago.”
Despite the working hours, he says he didn’t feel burnt out. Instead, his love for the job has grown due to the impact it has on the local people.
“I remember when we were doing a drive-through Covid vaccine clinic and there was this 90-year-old man and he asked if he could give me a hug. He did and he said that was the first time he’s had human contact in a year,” he says.
It wasn’t just Crowley’s working life that changed. For thousands of people, they were no longer required to travel in and out of the office every day, as a significant proportion of the workforce were asked to work from home.
In-person meetings became video chats online, face-to-face conversations in the office became phone calls or instant messages.
And though the emergency has since passed, the move to remote working has not yet shifted back to pre-pandemic norms.
Recruitment platform Indeed published a report last month on hiring trends, which found job postings offering remote or hybrid work arrangements rose to a record high in 2024 – despite a number of high-profile mandates seeking employees to return to full-time office attendance.
Laura del Rosal, from Westport in Co Mayo, is one such beneficiary of this transition. Before the pandemic, she was working for a consultancy firm near her home in Mayo. But in line with public health advice, “we closed our laptops and I never looked back”.
For the first year, she continued in her role at that company but she says the tech sector was crying out for workers and she “took advantage of that”.
“I think, before, I wouldn’t have ticked all of the boxes but because there was such huge demand I was able to get in with the skill set that I had. And ever since then, I’ve been able to continue to build my career,” she says.
The move to remote working has also altered her work-life balance; del Rosal says it is now “second to none”.
“I have kids. I couldn’t imagine having to go into an office every day or even a couple of days a week. I find the mornings totally stress-free because I just need to get the kids out the door to school and I don’t have to worry about a commute,” she says.
Her diet too she says, is much more well balanced as she can make herself nutritious lunches rather than picking up a takeaway. “I don’t bother with the chicken fillet rolls any more,” she adds, laughing.
This move to remote working is one of the biggest impacts of the pandemic, according to Pete Lunn, head of the behavioural research unit at the ESRI.
For a small minority of people, Lunn says, there is some evidence to suggest a “permanent reduction in socialisation” post-pandemic.
“One of the things the pandemic did is it kind of mentally threw all the pieces up in the air and they landed in different places. It was an event that shook us,” he says.
“When something like that happens, long-term habits can really change and people can discover things about themselves that are surprising. There are people who discovered that perhaps they are a bit more introverted than they thought and are actually happier not socialising as much as they used to.”
The other big consequence, he adds, is “the degree to which people view themselves as at risk from global events”.
“It’s quite likely, having lived through something like Covid, due to the way people process probabilities, it will cause people to adjust their perceptions of how likely it is things like this will occur in their lives and how serious those events could be.”
These are two things that are acutely felt by older people. Seán Moynihan, chief executive of Alone, a charity for older people, says almost 7 per cent of older people it assessed in 2024 had not been out socially in the past year.
“Loneliness was always an issue; the pandemic made it more tangible for people,” he adds.
Teresa O’Callaghan (67) continues to feel anxiety. Before the pandemic, she was “very outgoing”, she says, going into town weekly with a friend to a dance class where they learned how to jive.
“I wouldn’t do that any more,” she says, explaining that this is because of the physical nature of the class and the fear of mixing with people.
“People don’t care any more. You never see people sanitising their hands any more. It’s [Covid] still around you. It’s not over; there’s a new strain every year. I would be very anxious about it,” she adds.
[ Covid-19 five years on: What are your thoughts and reflections?Opens in new window ]
Her time during the pandemic was very lonely, she says, as she lives alone in a remote part of Co Mayo.
“I just sat down in the chair and cried sometimes. It was like a prison sentence. All there was to look forward to was if you ordered messages and someone was delivering it, then you might see someone that day,” she says.
“I was wondering if I would ever go out again. And then when it was over, I didn’t want to go out again. I felt very vulnerable. I was frightened to go outside. It’s only in the last year I’ve started going out again. Every Friday I get the bus into town and go to the shop for groceries. For that hour, it’s like a little slice of heaven.”
