It will take time to get over the trauma of the Covid-19 pandemic. The death of close family members or friends, cancelled celebrations which should have marked pivotal points in our lives, and the upheaval of everyday life will all have an enduring impact.
But, one sure way to recover our former selves is to get back out there and spend time with friends and family, go to weddings and christenings, re-schedule debutants balls and summer work abroad, travel long distance to see relatives, and enjoy the long summer nights at crowded festivals. Here, we speak with people who are doing just that. Be inspired.
Emigrate to London
Olivia Ekedozie
Olivia Ekedozie finished her acting and performance degree at the Technological University of Dublin just when the pandemic hit. "So, we didn't have our graduation or our end of year performance," she explains. Realising that she would have to put her creative career on hold, she got a job almost immediately working with the HSE Live contact centre, giving out advice and information about Covid-19.
“The pandemic stunted a lot of things [for creatives]. This job was a necessary evil. I learned a lot through contact with people from different backgrounds. It helped my craft as an actor. But moving to London is the best fit for me now.”
Ekedozie was born in Nigeria and lived in California before her family moved to Waterford. She initially considered moving back to California, but says "the saturation of actors there takes from the enjoyment of rough theatre".
“Everyone in California wants to be the next big thing but in London, I’ll get an agent, take some classes, go for auditions and get back into the scene,” she says. Like many other 20-somethings from Ireland, Ekedozie has friends already based in London and is currently looking for somewhere to live. As soon as she finds accommodation, she’ll fly over to start the next chapter of her life.
Throw a children’s birthday party
Margie Desmond and daughter Harriet Gleeson
Ireland went into its first Covid-19 lockdown just before Harriet Gleeson's 10th birthday on March 18th, 2020. When she turned 11, her mother, Margie Desmond organised for a few friends to join them outdoors by the sea. "They played together on the beach. It wasn't a typical birthday party and not what she had hoped for," she says.
Last month, a fun party with 11 friends was arranged for GoQuest in Carrickmines on Harriet's 12th birthday, but two days prior, Harriet tested positive for Covid. "They were very good and allowed us to re-schedule the party so it's going ahead this Friday and she is really excited," Desmond says.
GoQuest is an indoor venue where party-goers are split into teams to solve different clues before moving into another space. “Because they work in teams, it wouldn’t have been allowed during Covid,” she says. “We’ll come back to our house afterwards for pizza, cake and a movie to make a bigger occasion out of it.”
Play a music festival
Robert Grace
Robert Grace was close to packing up his hopes for a music career when his song Fake Fine became a hit. "I started it in January 2020 and finished it the week we went into lockdown. Because of the pandemic, there was a huge spike in people feeling anxious and depressed who heard the song and felt like they weren't alone. I think that's why people connected with it so much," he says.
Since then, the Kilkenny-based singer has written more songs and last month he released his debut EP, XXVII. “It’s called ‘27’ because the year [2020]when I was 27 started out as my worst and ended up as one of my best.”
Because of venue closures over the last two years, Grace has only recently got to perform again. He's particularly looking forward to playing Indiependence Music Festival in Cork in July. "I pre-recorded things during the pandemic but it's not the same as having a crowd. I supported Picture This in Gweedore, Donegal in October 2021 when things opened up and just before they closed down again so it will be amazing to be on the main stage for the first time at Indiependence. It will be a massive milestone for me because I've never played on the main stage of any festival."
Celebrate a christening
Rosita Boland
"My great niece, Amelie, was born on the cusp of the pandemic, in January 2020. Those were the days when new mothers could receive visitors in hospital. I ran to the Rotunda, and snuggled the newest member of the family.
“Amelie’s christening that year was scheduled, and rescheduled, as restrictions expanded and contracted. It had been meant to be a big family event. Church, then a party at home. There were discussions about who would cook what. My mother, then 92, made the gorgeous christening gown. She was to be the guest of honour.
“In the end, the christening went ahead in the autumn with just Amelie’s parents, and both sets of grandparents. There was no party. The christening had been delayed so long that we worried the gown that had been made by her great-grandmother would not fit Amelie. It did. Just.
“This month, Amelie became a big sister to Bobby. I texted my own big sister and said: ‘Maybe we can have a christening this time.’ My mother is gone now, but the gown she made with love endures. I look forward to the day when we can all gather to celebrate a new life, with my great nephew wrapped in the beautiful garment his great-grandmother made.”
Go camping
Conor Pope
"Every year for as long as any of my children can remember we camped in the summer. I'm not talking Bear Grylls-style camping or anything in tents, but posh camping in a mobile home with beds and a microwave and air-conditioning. And for most of the years my children can remember we went to the same place, a sprawling site by the sea 90 minutes south of Barcelona.
“In late 2019 I started planning my summer holidays for 2020 and, without much thought, put my deposit down with Eurocamp for that Spanish campsite as I’d done every year since 2014. My wife booked flights for five and we chipped away at the outstanding balance.
“I allowed my mind to wander forward to the summer when I’d be racing my children down water slides, wilfully ignoring the admonitions of lifeguards made grumpy by long days policing bold children and their bolder dads. I looked forward to the barbecue outside the mobile home where I’d spend mellow evenings flipping hot burgers and sipping chilled beers to a soundtrack of laughing children. I looked forward to the warm Mediterranean waves and the sun on my back.
“In late February 2020, with Covid travelling the world at the speed of coughs, I was still confident the holiday would happen. By March it became clear it wouldn’t. So I rolled the campsite booking into 2021 and fresh flights were arranged. Then, just 10 days before take-off and with the cloud of travel-related PCR tests hanging over my unvaccinated children, we cancelled the holiday again, rolling it into 2022. Covid has robbed us all of so much and taken many loved ones from us. It has also stolen the memories we would have made on that Spanish campsite in 2020 and 2021. I can’t reclaim those memories but I can look forward to making new ones this summer. Or at least I hope I can.”
Go on a J-1
Jack Ryan
"I can't wait to travel to New York this summer for my J-1," says Jack Ryan, a fourth year student of Economics and Sociology at Trinity College Dublin. "Losing out on that experience in summer 2020 was for me the biggest loss of the pandemic. I had it all planned out by February 2020 – job organised, accommodation sorted and everything booked and paid for. It all fell through. To rub salt into the wound all the money I paid to the J-1 agency was lost, as it went bust due to the pandemic."
The US lifted its travel ban in November, so the programme is back on this summer for the first time in three years.
"This year was my last chance to use the student summer visa, so I'm determined not to miss this opportunity again," Ryan says. "My plan this summer is to live with friends in Brooklyn, and work in a bar in downtown Manhattan.
“New York is a mad town for mad people. My visit to the city earlier this year left me addicted. I can’t wait to get back.”
Host a wedding
Erin Hall and Tadhg Barlow
American communications graduate Erin Hall met fiancé Tadhg Barlow while she was studying at Maynooth University for a semester in 2013, and he was at University College Dublin. "We kept in touch, met up in my final year at college. I moved to Ireland for a year and then we both moved to Chicago in 2017 where we've been ever since," she says.
The couple got engaged in August 2019 and planned to wed in Trudder Lodge in Co Wicklow in June last year. "Half of our guests were coming from abroad – the US, Sweden and even Zimbabwe – so in March, before everyone had booked their flights, we decided to postpone it because of Covid," she says.
As pandemic restrictions began to ease around the world, Hall and Barlow re-scheduled their wedding for this coming July.
Having enlisted the help of a wedding planner, things are coming together nicely as the summer approaches, Hall says. “We’ve done our tastings and booked all our vendors including the florist. We have booked a harpist and we might do some Irish dancing during the reception for our international guests.”
Friends and family are "itching to have a celebration", she says. "Our families are ready for this wedding as we've been together for a long time." After the wedding, the couple will return to their jobs in the US before flying to Sicily for their honeymoon in September.
Visit family abroad
Edel O'Dea and Niamh Fanning
New Zealand has had some of the strictest Covid border restrictions in the world, but prime minister Jacinda Ardern recently announced that visitors from visa-waiver countries including Ireland will be allowed to enter from May 1st.
Dubliner Edel O'Dea and her husband John Fanning are making plans to visit their daughter Niamh, son-in-law Graham and their two children Hugh (3) and Luan (two months), who live in Christchurch.
“We were fortunate to be there when Hugh was born and again for his first birthday, but we’re so looking forward to meeting Luan,” says O’Dea, who has flights booked for June.
The uncertainly around when she would be able to see her family over the past two years has been a hidden sense of loss for her. “I miss them most in the morning time. I keep busy with lots of projects. And although we often do video calls, it’s never the same as doing fun things together.”
Niamh, who is currently on maternity leave from her job as a medical researcher at the University of Otago, hasn’t been in Ireland since 2019. “I was meant to be bridesmaid at my best friend’s wedding in June 2020 [which went ahead during a lull in Covid cases in August 2020] so I missed that. Here in Christchurch, we have good neighbours and some friends from the UK and Ireland in similar situation to us. But I feel most guilty about my son, Hugh not seeing his four grandparents and new cousins. He talks about them all the time. I explained to him that New Zealand was waiting until it was safe to travel so he knows it wasn’t our choice not to see family.”
Niamh and Graham are also planning to fly home for a friend’s wedding in September. “We are looking forward to it. I’ve been telling Hugh about how we’ll get to see both grannies and granddads and cousins and go to parks and beaches in Ireland.”
Sing in a choir concert
Dr Neil Black, Irish Doctors Choir
The Irish Doctors Choir is unusual in that its members – who are scattered around the island of Ireland and beyond – continued to rehearse online throughout the pandemic. Last October, after 20 months singing through a screen, 40 members gathered for an in-person residential weekend workshop.
“We were nervous of exposing people to risk. So we put in as many precautions as we could – only the vaccinated could come, members took rapid antigen tests on arrival, masks were worn and carbon dioxide levels were monitored,” explains Dr Neil Black, endocrinologist at Alnagelvin Hospital in Derry.
Last month, members performed Faure’s Requiem in St Patrick’s Chapel at Maynooth University, without masks but still without an audience. “It was a massive relief for people to sing without masks in such a well ventilated space,” says Black.
The next in-person Irish Doctors Choir concert – this time with a live audience – is planned for November in the Guildhall in Derry, in aid of the Children in Crossfire charity. "There is a groundswell of recruitment for this event … we hope the pandemic will have abated by then," says Black.
Go to a debs
Lelia Moloney
Lelia Moloney did – or should we say – didn't do her Leaving Certificate in 2020 because in that first year of the pandemic, the exams were cancelled and students were given predicted grades. Now a second year Food Science student at University College Dublin, Moloney, who was head girl, joined her class from Alexandra College for their debutant ball at the Shelbourne Hotel just last week.
Speaking before the event about the anticipation for the debs which had been planned and postponed several times, she said: “It will definitely be weird getting back together with the girls as we were all 17 or 18 when we were in school and now, we’re 20 or 21. Everyone will be so much more mature.”
The class of 2020 stayed in touch – mostly virtually – throughout the pandemic but haven’t all seen each other face to face since school finished. “There won’t be a quiet second on the night because everyone will be talking so much. It will be a good long and fun night,” she anticipated. Lelia was bringing a friend as her date, but some of the girls decided to go by themselves just to catch up with friends again.
