I stepped outside my front door to be greeted by an icy fog. Limerick was cold and misty today. As always I was doing my Sunday constitutional which always takes me first to the legendary Milk Market. I ordered a super-complete pancake and coffee for my lunch. This pancake is bacon; cheese; mushroom and egg. Not the healthiest perhaps, but my exertions would take care of that. The heated seats at the market were pleasant.
St. Mary’s Cathedtral
My original intention that frosty Sunday had been to walk along the canal and river out to the University. My motivation was lacking . My hair was already wet – fog is just resting rain, so of course it was. The walk to the university is scenic but not in this weather. It’s also a route where if it starts raining there is no escape route. Instead I decided that I would walk the circumference of the King’s Island – the old part of town where King John’s Castle; St. Mary’s Cathedral; the old bishop’s palace and the mural of Dolores O’Riordan are located. Before the Georgian part of Limerick was built in the eighteenth century, the Island had been the city centre. It is a part of town with enormous tourist potential. Limerick City Council really need to make an effort to make this happen.
After my thwarted attempt to visit Stockholm, I suddenly had the entire Easter weekend to myself, and not a solitary plan made. As it was Saturday I visited the Milk Market where I bought a bag of apples, a dozen eggs, a block of gubbeen cheese, a carton of Valencia smoked nuts, a chicken roulade and a cup of Turkish hot sand coffee. After lunch I went online to see what was happening in Limerick. What was this? Two live performances of ‘Carrie’ by the University of Limerick Musical Theatre Society. It was 1.45pm. The matinee began in fifteen minutes. As the Belltable theatre is only a two minute walk from my residence I had plenty of time.
Paying my fifteen euro entrance fee I made my way to my seat. It was towards the back of the house. That wouldn’t do at all. Quickly glancing at the website I saw that the second row had several spare seats. So I moved – I wanted to be able to see the expressions on the actors’ faces.
Ireland and the UK seem to be the countries in the world with the most unbreakable attachment to the pantomime style of theatre – whereby an old fairy-tale is adapted into a musical comedy for all the family; where the performers onstage interact with the audience; where middle-aged men dress up as pantomime dames; where a young hero or heroine finds true love (with assistance from the audience). Targeted at children, there is plenty of topical, adult humour for the grown-ups. Staged from before Christmas to the New Year, it can be an extremely lucrative endeavour, when for a period of several weeks, there will be two shows daily, where former soap stars and TV entertainers can top up their income, or indeed earn enough to keep them in greasepaint for several months to come. The shows staged tend to be the same – Cinderella; Sleeping Beauty; Puss in Boots; Mother Goose; Peter Pan; Aladdin; The Jungle Book; Jack and the Beanstalk; Hansel and Gretel.
My first-time seeing Villagers live in concert was about ten years ago. A friend of mine asked if I’d be interested in seeing the Dublin band. I agreed – going to a concert is rarely a bad way spend an evening. What I witnessed impressed me greatly – soulful, melancholy and reflective music. Villagers can be classified as an indie-folk group but that wouldn’t be completely accurate. The only permanent member of the group is Conor O’Brien from Dublin. In the years since I have seen them / him live many times – from an old church in Amsterdam, to Vicar Street and the Iveagh Gardens in Dublin, to Dolans in Limerick. Last night’s gig was in the Limetree Theatre in Mary Immaculate College in Limerick. Having seen them earlier in the summer at the outdoor gig in the Iveagh Gardens, I know that last night’s concert would be more subdued. Villagers’music is wistful and forlorn so there would be none of the braggadocio that is required for outdoor concerts. Last night was advertised as an acoustic set. This wasn’t going to be a Bon Jovi with big hair type of gig. This is no bad thing.
On my lunchbreak I went downstairs to the Spar to buy an apple.
As it was Friday, I decided to get a posh takeaway coffee to welcome the weekend and Culture Night. Noticing a tiny barbershop beside the coffeeshop and needing a haircut I went in, to be informed that only cash payments would be accepted. How very ‘Ozark’ I thought to myself. It’s highly unlikely that money is laundered through that business, but that television show has alerted me to the myriad of ways in which to sanitise money.
I crossed the road to the bank machine.
Limerick skyline by night
‘Is it you again?’ roared the man through the open window of his car. He alit from the vehicle, his eyes ablaze, his voice irate.
I stared at him in stupefied bewilderment.
‘You’re after dropping something on the ground.’
He thought I was a litter lout.
‘Thanks’ I replied walking back to the white item. It was a large tissue – the kind I have never used. There was no way on earth I was touching that. It could have cooties. Glancing nervously back at the flustered gentleman I could see he was shouting into his phone. He wouldn’t notice me ignoring someone else’s litter.
The permanent move back to Limerick is progressing. These last few months since I obtained the keys to my new residence have seen me spending more time in Limerick than I have in decades. As I work out my notice on my lease in Dublin, I have been splitting my time – to ease me gently back in to life in m y hometown. One of the habits I acquired during lockdown in Dublin was the consumption of a bowl of porridge every day for breakfast – often accompanied by a boiled egg. In the absence of a subsidised work canteen during the plague, I had to fend for myself. Thanks to the pandemic I finally rediscovered the childhood joy of porridge – this time in the microwave. While I have long been a fan of a humble bowl of oatmeal, the gunk left at the bottom of the pan was off-putting. No longer – two and have minutes in the nukowave will suffice – with no scrubbing afterwards. Kearneys porridge from L’Idylle was my go to brand – featuring frequently as it did on the L’Idylle weekly bonus offers. Upon moving to Limerick, to my horror, I discovered that there was no budget, German supermarket near my house. I ventured to Dunnes where a tube of own brand porridge and a tube of Flahavans were purchased. Both were a vile taste of disappointment – lacking the texture and flavour of L’Idyyle’s version – being, stodgy, bland and flavourless.
May 22nd 2015 is the day that Ireland became the first country in the world where marriage equality was legalised thanks to a popular vote, when 62% of voters said that we were equal.
On 24th May 2015, the day after the count Limerick woman Ann Blake received a text from her brother, asking ‘How’s the morning after the life before?’ This question became the title of the play ‘The morning after the life before’ which subsequently toured the country and the world. I saw this play in Bewleys Theatre in Dublin in March 2018. This year for Limerick Pride, Dolan’s Warehouse in Limerick staged the reprisal. As my move home to Limerick will be finalised by next month I thought I’d pay a return visit. I am happy to have done so.
Yesterday evening I was sent an invitation to join a private Facebook group for members of my secondary school graduation class. This June will be the 30 year anniversary since I did my Leaving Certificate and the organiser wants the class of 1991 to reconnect. The invitation to join is valid for one month. I have not accepted it and I doubt I will be doing so. Until I decline the invitation I can see all activity but they cannot see me. Out of curiosity I clicked on the link to the group – which now has thirty-three members (from a graduating class of 175 people). There was a number of faces I recognised; a smaller number I am already connected to via social media; a surprisingly large number of people whose names I knew, but who for the life of me I couldn’t remember anything about. Other names drew a complete blank.
As would be expected, most of the posts from members were announcements about where their lives travelled – from Limerick to Dublin; from Boston to Brisbane. It was quite a shock to see all these middle aged faces –looking well, but a lot more seasoned than the teenagers I remember. They were a fertile lot, my old school year – pictures of offspring abounded.
My bags are unpacked but I am ready to go. This evening I will be taking a train out of Dublin for the first time since January (apologies to Wicklow but Bray or Greystones while technically outside Dublin seem culturally part of the Pale). I will be going to Limerick for a week long sojourn. I am not taking holidays, my laptop is accompanying me so I can pretend to be high powered and executive all week, while not officially surrendering days of leave.
The six months I have spent in Dublin is the longest protracted period of time I have ever spent in one place without any time away – no cheeky little weekend jaunts to Amsterdam or down home. It’s been relatively painless. I have been fortunate to live in a spacious (for one) city centre apartment. Since day one of the restrictions being imposed, I made the decision that my self-isolation would not mean that I would reject all human contact. Meeting people for socially distant walks was always my modus operandus. I bit my lip when people would place social media posts castigating people for meeting with friends. I don’t engage with emotive no-win social media arguments ever though as life is too short. I didn’t reply. Mentally however I’d notice that those people berating those of us who bent the rules (marginally) tended not to live alone and/or had access to an outdoor garden – a far more spacious and companionable set up than living alone in a fourth floor flat with a balcony the size of a shoebox. I bit my lip and continued to meet my fellow solo travellers for walks while observing all advice on social distancing, hand hygiene etc.
There have been some highlights to the lockdown. Lidl is a supermarket I have gotten to know intimately. If your diet suddenly changes to three home cooked meals every day for months on end, then the absurdly over-priced IFSC shops needed the heave-ho. Instead I embraced the German budget superstore and broadened my cooking repertoire.
I am also now the possessor of a large freezer machine packed with enough food for a month. Heretofore said appliance stood empty in the corner for years on end. Thanks to the pandemic I have discovered than Marks and Spencer’s yellow-sticker deals can all be frozen. As a result I have a menu of posh food at my fingertips . I call it Protestant food- not for sectarian reasons of course, more to do with how British it all seems – scallop bakes, honey glazed salmon, chili flavoured spatchcock chicken, tuna fillets and the like. It’s a far cry from the boiled bacon and cabbage and turnips and boiled spuds on which I was raised.
Working from home surprisingly was a bonus in the context of being busy for forty hours each week. It leant an air of normalcy and continuity to life. The oldies station RTE Gold playing in the background, I sat at my desk looking out at the Luke Kelly statue and carried on my work routine as normally as possible. The calls with colleagues about work issues were often the only human voices I interacted with from Monday to Friday (I’d meet friends at the weekend). Obviously I didn’t let on to them. I wouldn’t be the type to overshare my life with workmates. I’ll never tell them they were my only contact – they’d look at me with pity from their suburban nirvana, and then judge me harshly when they hear that I was meeting friends for walks through out lockdown.
Mentally the lockdown was tolerable. Having lived abroad and alone for many years it wasn’t a novel experience going for extended periods of time without seeing family. The circumstances were unique in this instance of course, but my years in Amsterdam stood me in good stead.
The horror of what was going on in terms of deaths and infections from Covid-19 was something I tried to avoid. I used to watch the 9 o’clock news each night and try to leave it at that.
Occasionally I’d get a case of the panics. What if I catch this? Who will bring me food if I have to self-isolate? What if I die from it alone in my flat and my body is not discovered for months? What if I need to go on a ventilator in hospital? No-one will be able to visit? I’m Type 1 diabetic – that means I’m high risk if I catch this right? I’m going to get this?
The darkest day was the day I saw the Army ship setting up a Covid clinic on the river Liffey near my house in the early days of the lockdown. It felt apocalyptic and terrifying – the Army busy while the normally busy street was devoid of all other traffic. Seeing Sinead O’Connor singing ‘Light up’ in honour of the frontline workers that same night, chilled me to the bone. We’re all doomed, I thought to myself. This is the end. And then I saw the social media posts shrieking condemnation towards those of us who were still meeting people outside of their own house. If I catch this, then I’ll have no-one to blame but myself?
The next day I got up, told myself to pull myself together and made a fruit smoothie. Then I went for a walk around Dublin – a city I‘d wager that I now know as well as if I’d lived here all my life. My travels around the city were comprehensive, thorough and well researched. While I am not a fan of the Loving’ Dublin website, I can now proudly boast that I have done twenty one out of the twenty three walks that they recommend. Along with some other routes I discovered on my own. The 2 kilometre restriction wasn’t too burdensome when you live in the city centre. So much to discover. When it was extended to 5km it felt like a travel party.
My train for Limerick departs at 17.30 this evening. I initially booked it about two months ago when July 20th was announced as the date that non-essential travel was permitted anywhere in Ireland. Sometime later that date was advanced by three weeks. I kept my original booking. This evening I am getting on a train with my face-mask in place. I am very much looking forward to it. Once I get to Limerick Junction I will be on the home stretch.
Thursday was the day that I had planned to travel to Latvia and Lithuania for the first time. With the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic running amok, my plans were altered last week as soon as Ryanair announced that it would not be charging passengers to rebook flights for later in the year. Here’s hoping that by August this incredibly weird, semi-lockdown experience might have passed. Continue reading From a distance – Day 8: The Coronavirus Diaries and a trip to the theatre→
Thursday was the day that I had planned to travel to Latvia and Lithuania for the first time. With the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic running amok, my plans were altered last week as soon as Ryanair announced that it would not be charging passengers to rebook flights for later in the year. Here’s hoping that by August this incredibly weird, semi-lockdown experience might have passed. 
midnightmurphy 