I thought about the 1,013 new cases and the 94 further deaths

We were driving over the East-Link toll bridge on an excursion to Dublin’s southside. It was exciting to see the mouth of the river again, to turn to look in the direction of the city and see the bridges over the Liffey reflected on the mirror-still water.

“There are 1,013 new confirmed cases of Covid-19, while 94 further deaths have also been recorded,” said the man on the radio news. His grim pronouncement was followed by a commercial break featuring a smooth man selling smooth cars with advanced safety features and innovative technologies, cars that allowed one to “experience amazing”.

We drove on, past a strange house we once rented in the 1990s. I found out I was pregnant there. I remember leaving it and going out into the rain to absorb the news, then walking to a nearby bar. The pregnancy wasn’t something I’d been expecting; my body felt interestingly alien. (In retrospect, I was experiencing amazing without the benefit of an intelligent car.)

I produced my appointment message for the injury clinic at a Garda checkpoint and was waved on. I saw myself in the wing mirror, hunched, white-lipped. I would have waved me on too

We drove along the canal, past silent swans and sleeping building sites. There was a Garda checkpoint at Harold’s Cross. I produced my appointment message for the injury clinic and was waved on. I saw myself in the wing mirror, hunched, white-lipped – I would have waved me on too.

Is it any wonder I never ran naked along the Seine?

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Hilary Fannin: Even procrastibaking can’t stop the days disappearing

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I was homeschooled by paper dolls and an amber-eyed dog

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‘I’m thinking of leaving him, as soon as I can get beyond the 5km limit’

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I remember the details of that Irishtown house so clearly. A short-term rental, it had shelves full of dusty little bottles of balms, lotions and unidentifiable waxy potions. There was a locked door at the top of the stairs. Sometimes, when I was alone there, I wondered if someone might be inside.

I couldn’t have told you how much rent we paid in the witchy house or how long we stayed, but I remember the candle stubs, the cracked dishes of scentless potpourri.

We parked outside a block of boarded-up shops. A man with a tattooed neck and a dent in his skull walked by a shuttered fitness emporium; an elderly woman pushed a sleeping dog in a go-kart past a Chinese takeaway.

I put on my mask, walked with difficulty to the clinic door.

I lay on a treatment table while the clinician deftly aligned a mutinous hip bone. I thought about the 1,013 new cases and the 94 further deaths. Objectively, I understood the toll. I knew, too, that the 94 people who’d died were not statistics but individuals with lives and loves and dreams. Statistics tell one story, people tell another.

I thought then about an email I’d received from a friend that morning, containing details of lives that can get lost in statistics and a generalised sense of chaos. These details are something we need to pay attention to, details that history will tell us we could not afford to gloss over.

My friend Donnah Vuma, the activist, reminded me about the 1,700 children in the State who are living in direct provision and who, during the Covid-19 pandemic, face an almost insurmountable challenge to continue their education. “It is the children,” she wrote, “who suffer the most.”

One young girl, a secondary student, has missed essential Zoom classes as she has to share her mother's mobile phone with her siblings. They take turns on Zoom calls, negotiating among themselves what classes they cannot afford to miss

In her capacity as founder of the Limerick-based organisation Every Child Is Your Child, Donnah has been approached by hundreds of parents, reaching out in desperation for assistance to acquire a laptop or tablet so that their children can keep up with their schoolwork.

She told me about a young girl, a secondary-school student, one of many mired in stress, who has missed essential Zoom classes because she has to share her mother’s mobile phone with her siblings. The family, like many others, take turns on Zoom calls, negotiating among themselves what classes they cannot afford to miss.

Without internet access or hardware, children who are already desperately disadvantaged lose weeks of education and will struggle to catch up when and if schooling returns to normal.

Every Child Is Your Child aims to change the conditions of children in direct provision by raising funds to purchase tablets, so that all of them have the opportunity to learn. With a waiting list of 700, the organisation has, to date, raised more than €3,000, which has helped to buy 45 tablets. One hundred per cent of the money donated, Donnah assures me, goes directly to purchasing tablets for children in direct provision.

Every Child Is Your Child has been assisting children for four years, with 1,356 of them reached through its Back2School drive in 2020. The organisation’s ethos is simple: all children deserve the chance to live full and happy lives.

With negligible support from the Government, it is a call we might try to answer.