Five years now since our world turned on its head

We’d already been aware of an upsurge in some highly contagious virus emanating from China and making its way into our part of the world, but if you were to track the moment that Covid 19 took over our world it was when Leo Varadkar stood on the steps of Blair House – the American President's Guest House – in Washington DC and told us that we were going into lockdown.

That was almost five years ago to the day, when the then-Taoiseach – on the St Patrick’s Day trip to the White House that Micheál Martin is now approaching with trepidation for different reasons – announced the closure of all schools, colleges and other public facilities in response to the rapidly-developing coronavirus pandemic.

And in a moment, life as we knew it changed – but not forever.

Because even a few short years later, there are times you have to take a moment to remember what this meant – and how quickly, in real terms, everything returned to normal.

At least normal in terms of a global pandemic; the world is perhaps more off its axis now than it was then, given the presence of a megalomaniac in the White House, in league with a despot in the Kremlin.

But on that Thursday morning, March 12 2020, we were gripped by fear for the unknown – and, for so many, the months that followed changed their lives and their family landscape forever.

Restrictions meant we couldn’t go to funerals or weddings; we couldn’t celebrate or mourn together. Young people learned how to educate themselves from their computer while perched in their bedrooms.

Pubs closed and many never re-opened; restaurants, the same. Shops that didn’t have an online presence learned to adjust rapidly or they disappeared – and all of that fast-tracked the path to a world of internet orders and home deliveries.

And yet there might have been a few positives too although, in the face of a constant threat of critical illness or death, you might find it hard to find themselves.

It’s always easier after the event once you know you’ve survived – because we would all have dealt with this uncharted territory in a more sanguine way if we knew for sure we would come out the other side.

And most of us did, which is in no way to diminishing the pain of those who lost loved ones to this deadly virus.