Category Archives: Lockdown

Film: ‘North Circular’ – my beautiful neighbourhood

Covid-19, Dublin, Film, Ireland, Lockdown, Music, ,

From January 2016 until August 2022 I lived in a flat overlooking the end of the Royal Canal in Dublin . Where it meets the river Liffey. From the balcony in the kitchen I could observe the riverside Convention Centre and a block of gleaming, glass apartments in the IFSC. Living on a corner, the view from my bedroom was different – the Laurence O’Toole church on Seville Place and the statue of Sherriff Street and Dubliners legend Luke Kelly. This was the point where Seville Place turned into Guild Street. If you walked from the river to Guild Street and onwards through Seville Place, underneath the railway bridge, and across Amiens Street, you’d reach Portland Row – from where Olympic gold medallist Kellie Harrington hails. Portland Row turns into the North Circular Road when you cross Summerhill. The North Circular continues in a loop for several miles until it ends at the Phoenix Park. These are roads that I know well, and which I got to know in great detail from March 2020 when the lockdown was declared and we were mandated not to stray further than specific distances from our homes.

In early December a documentary called ‘North Circular’ was released. It tells the story through music, of how the old working class communities of Dublin are adapting to a city being homogenised for tourists and tech workers. This sounded interesting. It’s a road I had walked hundreds of times over the years – even prior to lockdown, it was the street I walked through to reach Dorset street to take my daily work bus to the Wastelands.
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Pandemic travels : Andalusia July 2021

Covid-19, Lockdown, Pandemic Travels, Travel, , ,

Non-essential travel from Ireland was re-permitted from the end of July. Having bought a flight to Malaga on the Costa Del Sol earlier that year, before the date when restriction were eased, for the day after said restrictions were finally lifted was perfect timing. This would be my first trip to Malaga – though I’d been to sister Andalusian city of Seville en route to Morocco some years earlier. My preconception was that Malaga was a gateway to Torremolinos and Fuengirola and those massive sun holiday resorts so beloved by the Irish and our northern European neighbours.

Alhambra from the Mirador de San Nicolas

What hit me first as I disembarked the plane at 8pm was how hot it was. I’d forgotten to take into account the sweltering heat of southern Spain in summer. I should have known – I’d been to Greece and Malta during high season on previous travels. My lack of foresight was my own fault. I wasn’t worried – I was on holidays. I would struggle through. More concerning was my lack of digital Covid vaccine certificate. Having been fully vaccinated since May I should have received this soon to be compulsory travel pass. No such luck. I had the cardboard HSE card detailing my status but was worried it might be looked at askance by the Spanish authorities. There was nothing I could do about that now. I wasn’t going to delay my trip for the sake of a QR code.

Gibralfaro Castle

My hotel was in the centre of the surprisingly large city. My research indicated that Malaga was Spain’s sixth largest city with a population of 600,000 people. Good news. This wasn’t just a beach resort.
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Pandemic travels: The Scottish Highlands and Hebrides, July 2021

Coronavirus, Covid-19, Lockdown, Pandemic Travels, Travel, , , , ,

By July of this year, international travel out of Dublin Airport remained banned (in theory) for all but essential purposes. Obviously a hastily muttered ‘funeral’ to any inquiring policeman would see you waved through security. I am not a convincing liar however, so I performed my usual clever trick – I flew from Belfast for my upcoming trip. My destination was the Scottish Highlands. The plan was to visit the city of Inverness to where you could get a direct flight. I contacted a Glaswegian friend M, and asked her if she had any recommendations for Inverness and the surrounding area.

‘When are you going?’ came her reply. I told her early July. To my astonishment she told me that she and her partner D had bought a camper van and were planning a camping holiday in the Highlands at the same time I was visiting. An offer of a tent and a seat in the van was made. This was a welcome development. Solo travel is very enjoyable, and I have become a veteran of such excursions. Traveling with friends is preferable, however. Shared experiences take the edge when it comes to travel.

My EasyJet flight was early morning from Belfast International. The thought of rising at 5am to catch a bus from Dublin filled me with horror. I booked a room in a youth hostel close to the Europa bus station in Belfast that would allow me to emerge from my crypt at a more humane 8.30am and reach the airport on time for my flight. I ignored the fact that I was at least twenty years older than everyone staying in the hostel – I had paid for a private room so I could close my door on the world.

The flight the next day was uneventful, short, and almost empty. The bus to Inverness town from the airport departed once an hour. The next scheduled service was in twenty minutes. I asked the driver if he was going to town. He said that he’d be back in the airport in twenty minutes but if I wanted to board the bus now that was fine. The airport shuttle was a back-and-forth service. I may as well see some of the Highlands. I hopped on the bus and went on my way. The landscape around Inverness is very like West Cork – very beautiful.
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Pandemic Travels – London – May 2021

Coronavirus, Covid-19, Lockdown, Pandemic Travels, Theatre, Travel,

As the second year of the pandemic draws to a close, I decided I would do a review of my year in foreign travel. Merely to record my traveling excursions during these strange times. I will do an account on a daily (or thereabouts) basis for yours (and my) amusement.

January to April this year were stationary of course. The lifting of lockdown last Christmas had a dreadful impact on Covid numbers, hospitalisations, and deaths, early in the year. Therefore, foreign travel was banned for all but essential purposes. These early months of the year also saw the rollout of the vaccination programme. As an individual in a high-risk category, I was fully vaccinated with both doses of the Moderna vaccine by May.

Travel was still not permitted though. From Dublin Airport I mean. Travel to Belfast from Dublin was fine. Travel from Belfast to London was also permitted. Being someone who willingly wears a mask, respects physical distancing; and maintains hand hygiene, I granted myself a pass. Not the wisest some might say. Selfish and self-centred others might declare, as they say to their partner / housemate sitting in their back garden. I had made the decision to ignore any lectures from people who didn’t live alone in a small apartment.

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Theatrical: ‘Faith Healer’ at the Abbey

Abbey Theatre, Lockdown, Theatre,

In December 2019, upon the announcement of the Abbey Theatre’s 2020 programme of events, I bought a ticket to see ‘Faith Healer’ by Brian Friel for its March revival. Starring Niamh Cusack, Aidan Gillen and Nigel Lindsay, it would be my first time seeing an adaptation of a Brian Friel play. Obviously the production was cancelled, along with all other live events. These have only just reappeared in the last couple of months, after almost two years of darkened stages.

I met Aidan Gillen randomly, early during the lockdown. At least I think I did. When I say I ‘met’ him, it may be more accurate to say I ‘encountered’ him. I recognised him from ‘Queer as folk’ from the tail end of the 20th century, and from various other shows. Imagine my surprise when one lunchtime, last spring I was crossing the Samuel Beckett Bridge to my northside of the Liffey, laden down with a bag full of insulin and needles, when he almost crashed into me on his bicycle. I was crossing at the green pedestrian light, and I imagine that he was trying to zip through before the cycle lights turned red. He was quite apologetic as he went on his way. My internal response was ‘Oh look it’s Stuart from Queer as Folk’. I think it was him anyway. If it was, then his politeness was impressive. If it wasn’t then, I retract the cycling slur from his good name. In either case – watch those lights.

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Lockdown cooking

Lockdown,

I am an adequate cook. By saying that I mean that I am able to function in a kitchen with some basic raw materials. I can usually cobble together something reasonably edible. I make no boasts about being particularly talented or experimental in the kitchen. Before lockdown I had a go-to list of about five dishes I could cook from scratch without referencing a recipe book. That always struck me as sufficient to function as an adult in the world – and allowed a moderately varied diet.

As a single person, cooking can be fairly unrewarding – you don’t want to spend too much effort on a meal that you will consume in ten minutes without a solitary compliment from someone else to reward your ego. Cooking for a large number of people has never been a challenge for me – coming from a family of seven children, I have always been proficient at feeding the masses with the ingredients supplied by my parents. To this day, I still single-handedly cook Christmas dinner for the school of Murphies that assembles in Limerick each December.

Lockdown has changed my culinary narrative somewhat. As all restaurants, theatres, pubs and cinemas have been closed for almost a year, there is no longer anywhere to go in the evening. The evenings can be long. I have an objection to using the delivery apps to bring me food, thanks to how dreadfully the delivery guys are treated and paid by Deliveroo and Ubereats and JustEat. These days I cook at home for myself, seven days a week. Five core meals was no longer sufficiently varied. So I started varying it up somewhat.

For your pleasure here is list of dishes that I had never cooked before lockdown.  This list does not list basic staples of pre-covid life such as spaghetti bolognaise; carbonara; green chicken curry etc. It is new dishes. Also I have of course eaten all the below dishes – simply never prepared them myself. ,This post is sponsored by the Marks and Spencer yellow sticker scheme – whereby I go to the M&S shop across the road for my house each day at 5pm and purchase ‘reduced to clear’ posh, Protestant food for a fraction of the original cost, and then immediately transfer it to the freezer for thawing and consumption at an unspecified future date.

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Pandemic travel: Venice is calling. October 2020

Coronavirus, Covid-19, Lockdown, Pandemic Travels, Travel, Uncategorized, ,

As this strangest of years draws to a close, I am putting finger to keypad one more time to describe my travels in the time of pandemic. My final jaunt of the year taken before the second lockdown was imposed was to Venice as September turned to October. I will preface this post with my usual disclaimer. While traveling to, and while in Venice, I observed all physical distancing, hand hygiene and mask-wearing guidelines. I observed the fourteen-day quarantine period upon my return to Ireland – which as I have previously mentioned is not that difficult when you live alone. I kept this excursion entirely to myself again, not wanting to hear people’s criticism or judgement of my decision to travel. The only person I was placing at risk by my choice was myself. For the sake of my sanity, I thought my decision was sound.

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Pandemic travel: Barcelona, September 2020

Coronavirus, Covid-19, Lockdown, Pandemic Travels, Travel, , , , ,

It was November 2019. I was sitting at my desk in the Wastelands pondering opportunities for foreign travel in 2020. I wanted to visit places that I had never previously travelled. Destinations in Europe that fit such a description were becoming scarce. With the exceptions of the Baltic countries of Latvia and Lithuania. I went online and booked a trip – flight into Riga on Thursday 9th March and then fly back from Vilnius on Tuesday. A two for one holiday. As March approached there were rumblings about coronavirus. It became very real in the middle of February flying back from Rome. The guards in haz-mat suits taking temperatures of people departing struck an ominous note. In early March I decided that the Plague made it unwise to travel. The air of the apocalypse hung heavy. It felt like Armageddon. I postponed my trip until late August.

If I survived then surely things would be back to normal by autumn. Little did I know. The August flights were not cancelled, and Covid related deaths and infections in Ireland had drastically reduced. I was willing to take the risk to make the trip. Unfortunately Latvia and Lithuania were not so lackadaisical. If I was I to travel I would be expected to self-isolate for fourteen days upon entry. Reluctantly I decided not to travel. Crossing the border between Latvia and Lithuania by bus might be tricky. I didn’t want to get into trouble with the Baltic authorities. Ryanair didn’t reimburse me. Of course they didn’t – it is Satan’s favourite airline. The flight was not cancelled therefore if I was going to be charged more than the flight originally cost if I were to postpone. With a heavy heart the Thursday of departure passed. I remained in Dublin.

The following week felt heavy. This pandemic seemed relentless and eternal. On Wednesday I was staring morosely out the window at the Luke Kelly statue, hissing at the emails from my work customer as they appeared in my inbox. I was idly entering destinations onto the ‘fare-finder’ section of the Ryanair website. This is the section that offers last minute deals. What was this – a Friday to Monday return flight to Barcelona cost 40 euros. I had no intention of going anywhere. Out of curiosity I opened booking.com. What was this – three nights in a pension in the Gothic Quarter for nineteen euros a night? In other words a three day trip to one of Europe’s most beautiful cities would cost under a hundred euros. Departure in thirty-six hours. As if in a daze I clicked on the ‘buy ticket’ button, giving a little yelp of terror as I did so.

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Summer sojourn in London during the Plague

Coronavirus, Covid-19, Lockdown, Pandemic Travels, Travel,

I live alone. I am not part of a social bubble with another person. Working from home each day, I can often go the entire week without meeting anyone in real life apart from the shop assistants in Marks and Spencer when I am on a yellow stickered luxury food items mission. These foods don’t require any effort other than to place them in the oven (and if truth be told I would never be able to assemble a scallop bake on my own). It’s been like this for most of the year. It’s been annoying and difficult while remaining reasonably manageable.

However in July I threw caution to the wind, and booked a flight to London for a three day trip. Having witnessed how toxic judgement can be towards people who choose to bend the rules to accommodate their personal situation, I kept this trip off social media at the time. I was unwilling to deal with other people’s reactions. Particularly from people who had either a garden or who lived with another human being. On my trip, I would follow the rules by washing my hands; socially distancing, wearing a mask and continuing my self-isolated life as normal when I returned. My conscience was clear, but I wasn’t going to trumpet my travel plans.
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My Covid-19 test

Coronavirus, Covid-19, Dublin, Lockdown, Uncategorized

Sometime on Tuesday night, I woke up coughing. I was not initially worried. Even though it has been three years since I quit smoking, each year since – as the winter draws in – I get a  brief case of the remnants of a smoker’s cough. Nothing like the hollow, hacking sound that cough mixture couldn’t reach, back in the smoky days – but a faint, irritating condition nonetheless. When after two hours of coughing it hadn’t ceased, I started to worry.

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