IRELAND HAS officially lived under Covid-19 restrictions for a year.
On 12 March 2020, while the world became more anxious about the spread of Covid-19 and Ireland was beginning to accept that the St Patrick's Day parades would likely not happen this year, Leo Varadkar was in the United States.
A popular tradition which sees the ties between Ireland and the US strengthened each year is for the Taosieach to visit with the US president and present them with a owl of shamrocks, allowing the two leaders to discuss their two countries and the months and years ahead.
In March 2020, then-Taoiseach Leo Varadkar met with then-President Donald Trump-- but the Fine Gael leader was forced to make an unprecedented nationwide address to the people of Ireland from Washington DC.
Opening the statement with the now-infamous phrase "I need to speak to you about coronavirus," Mr Varadkar declared: "From 6pm today, the following measure are being put in place, and they will stay in place until the 29th of March.
"Schools, colleges and child care facilities will close from tomorrow. Where possible, teaching will done online or remotely.
"Cultural institutions will close as well. Our advice is that all indoor mass gatherings of more than 100 people, and outdoor mass gatherings of more than 500 people should be cancelled.
"Arrangements are being made to make sure that everyone entering Ireland through ports and airports is fully informed and self-isolates if they develop symptoms."
He added that the public should "work from home where possible" and that face-to-face interactions should be reduced by holding meetings online or over the phone-- this before Zoom became a household name across the world.
While restaurants, pubs and other businesses were allowed to stay open, many took the initiative to close their doors immediately in the wake of the announcement-- and just days later, after a video of a packed Dublin pub with revellers singing Sweet Caroline went viral, the hospitality industry as a whole was forced to close.
"Above all, we all need to look out for each other," Varadkar said at the close of the now-historic speech.
"We will prevail."
One year to the day of this historic speech, Ireland remains under a lockdown almost as strict as the one announced on 12 March 2020, with the only difference being some children have returned to school.
The vaccine roll-out is the long-promised 'light at the end of the tunnel', but there is still some way to go before the country returns to any semblance of normality.
