‘Tried of the quiet’ of lockdown Liam we’re not singing now
Cooconer Kevin Mulligan reflects on living with COVID in these challenging days
‘I remember that summer in Dublin’.
Somehow, since news of Liam Reilly’s death became known on Friday the words of his haunting ballad kept echoing in the mind.
Only this time it’s not ‘ the Liffey that stinks like hell’ but the bloody awful year just finished and one that Dublin, nor the rest of the country, ever wants to remember for a very long time.
As Liam wrote when penning his legacy hit to the nation ‘I was singing a song I heard somewhere’.
Well Liam my auld son of Dundalk not many of us are singing these days as nightly we hide behind the sofa not wishing to hear the latest COVID infection figures on the RTE news.
Liam’s now gone - as he penned himself - ‘ to find a place where I can hear the wind and the birds and the sea and the rocks’.
We’re left behind to battle this awful pandemic that is now starting to infiltrate every home, every life.
Somehow during the first wave we were sustained the hope that it would soon be over.
Then came the relief of the lifting of the first lockdown, and while the predicted second wave duly arrived there was the looming prospect that a vaccine would soon be found.
Now we’re in the middle of the third wave and tragically it is waving goodbye to more and more of us.
Even the roll out of the vaccine is not lifting the spirits in the way it should for us over 70’s for we’re worried as Liam Reilly’s lyrics seemed to predict ‘ things won’t be the same’ again.
Maybe it’s to do with the weather, or the normal anti-climax that January normally brings after the joy of Christmas, but this lockdown, when compared to the first, is taking a heavy toll on our mental well being.
For a time the lockdown novelty intrigued us, cocooned at home, perfecting the baking, catching up with books we always meant to read, or enjoyed before.
Even missing the regular visit to the hairdresser or barber didn’t faze us, as it normally would, for it was a chance to grow out the colour, or see how some stubble on the chin would look like.
The weather was fine, it was a pleasure exploring the countryside in Spring, and if the golf and the pub were off limits, we coped, thinking it was a temporary thing and we were doing our bit for the country and the hard pressed health service.
The second lockdown - well that was different. It slowly became more of a drudge.
The novelty was gone, so too was the rigid adherence to obedience.
We sneaked outside of ‘curfew’ area on the odd occasion, and a few, who shall not be named, furtively knocked on the door of their local for a pint of the black stuff.
This time however it hasn’t taken Dr. Tony or Micheal or even Leo to tell us what to do and what not to do.
We’re fully ready to comply.
Why? Because we’re scared.
At this stage we have all known a relative, a friend, a neighbour or an acquaintance who has died as a result of COVID.
We’ve all had to endure the awful task of expressing our condolences on a soulless website or tuned into a webcam site when we should be there to comfort loved ones.
We’ve listened with intense curiosity to the suffering COVID patients had to endure with many in our age bracket revealing that they never experienced such sickness in their lives.
When Dr. Tony says ‘stay at home’ we’re not arguing this time.
It does however mean listening or watching interminable chat shows with the hosts contin
ually trying to back the Taoiseach and his Ministers into admitting that they are responsible for the current surge in infections.
They may have taken a gamble by lifting the pain barrier for Christmas, but they didn’t want to be accused of becoming the Scrooge of Christmas.
It would be interesting to ask if some of the inquisitors fully observed the regulations.
Did someone mention an RTE retirement party.
We all wanted a Christmas and we got one, even if it was different.
Now we’re paying the price.
Of course those who observed the regulations to the letter of the law - and incidentally few did - are doubtless pointing the finger.
Suffice to say that those who looked after themselves are reaping the rewards and should be thankful for that, not pointing fingers at others.
Maybe it time to start singing the words of another Irish Eurovision entry Johnny Logan ‘What’s Another Year’, for at this stage, it’s not looking a lot different from the last.
At times, us over 70’s are as Liam Reilly penned ‘ tired of the quiet’ that lockdowns have introduced into our lives.
‘We want to get back up the hill; get on the road, stick out a thumb’ and want to believe that there will be some life after Covid.
Let’s hope so, providing countless opportunities to listen to evocative lyrics of Liam Reilly’s songs that will survive Covid and us all.
May his gifted soul rest in peace.