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IT’S EXACTLY A year since Leo Varadkar’s speech from Washington ordering the closure of schools and public buildings and calling on anyone who could work from home to do so.
The following days were marked by uncertainty and a not inconsiderable degree of panic across the events and hospitality sector, as workers and business owners attempted to decide whether it was safe or advisable to continue trading.
Three days later, following a hastily-arranged meeting with vintners groups, the government advised that all pubs should close for an initial period of two weeks.
Over the coming weeks, of course, restaurants would also close.
Tourism, events and hospitality would largely shut down.
While others adjusted to a new form of work in their own home, many found themselves out of work altogether as their industries shut.
For those people left with no work because of the pandemic, it’s been a very long 12 months. And when it comes to the 12 months ahead many believe it may take longer than that before they start to feel a real recovery.
We’ve spoken to people in a number of industries that were among the first to close a year ago – and have yet to re-open – to get their perspective on the past year and how they’re feeling looking ahead.
Daniel Smith works at popular Dublin city pub Grogans.
Staff at the pub put up Christmas decorations there in the hope they’d be able to open in December.
While pubs that serve food were able to trade for most of December, the others – what we now refer to as ‘wet pubs’ – weren’t. Grogans has been closed since Saturday 14 March last year.
Said Smith: “When we closed, we never could have anticipated it’d go on this long in our wildest dreams.”
“It’s beyond anything. I go out walking, meet people for coffee and that. But it wears it out of you. I think I’ve watched enough Netflix at this stage. I go into the pub to check up on things every so often. It’s mad it’s been so long.”
For Noel Carroll, it’s also been a long year.
“I think I’m sick of walks,” he told TheJournal.ie.
“My wife has us out every day of the week. I listen to podcasts as well when I go for a run in the 5k. Mainly business ones to try get ideas on how to improve.”
Carroll runs Carrolls Tours, a company that primarily catered for overseas tourists. That tap was also turned off in March 2020.
“I remember being on an industry call with Tourism Ireland or Fáilte Ireland, and a high-ranking official was saying there’d be no inbound tourism here until October,” Carroll said.
“My face turned white. And here we are, a year on. Here again.”
Niamh Parsons has been a professional trad singer and musician for the past 30 years. In the past she’s regularly toured across Europe and the US.
“It’s the first time I’ve taken a break in all that time,” she said. “It’s been a very strange time.
I remember heading into this week last year – Paddy’s Week – and myself and the people I know had lots of gigs coming up. A lot of big paying gigs too. Would’ve looked after my rent for a month or two. Then I had to go on the PUP. It’s been a long year, that’s for sure.
Megan Best runs Native Events and is the operations manager for the popular Body & Soul festival. That festival was one of numerous events due to be held last summer that never went ahead.
“It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long,” she said.
“Time is doing a sort of weird thing where there’s no way of delineating one space and time from another when everything’s the same.”
For Best, it’s been a year of ups and downs. The cancellation of Body & Soul was an example of the latter.
“That was an emotional time,” she said. “It’s been such a huge part of my life for more than a decade. Even going back to that beautiful festival site. You develop a real relationship with the space itself.
But it was also a nice feeling too. I knew for the first time in more than a decade we wouldn’t be bringing 10-15,000 people here. A forced fallow year like they have at Glastonbury. So there was a sense of comfort. You could pause and reflect. And take a breather for once.
Tough year
Carroll worked with a number of tour guides from a premises in Dublin. Once it was clear there’d be no tourists, some of those tour guides were let go and the premises vacated.
“I’m operating from home,” he said.
“But for people in this industry, this is their livelihood. The tourist season is everything to them. It’s devastating for so many people. I just want to get back to work.”
The partial re-opening of society before Christmas raised hopes of some kind of return to normality in the new year.
But the huge spike in Covid-19 cases that has precipitated the longest and most sustained period of Level 5 restrictions quickly put paid to that.
“I thought we might be back in business by the end of February,” Carroll said.
“We’re here again. It feels like deja vu. We might get a trickle of business this year but it’ll be a long time before it recovers.”
Parsons said that with no gigs to perform at, her creativity when it comes to songwriting and singing “just went out the window”.
“There was a lot fear, and that’s not good for creativity,” she said. “I miss being able to sing with other people. Rehearsing together. My fingertips have gone soft from not banging out on the guitar.
I haven’t been paid for singing in the past year. I’ve been getting the PUP alright. I know my other friends who play traditional music. They’d play in pubs on a regular basis, and that’s all impacted with them losing earnings. It’s extremely frustrating.
Despite this, Parsons said that getting a break from the relentless nature of the industry has been welcome.
“I still get up to an awful lot,” she said. “I’m big into history, so you can learn more about the songs you’re singing. I’m taking that into some of the teaching I do too.”
Smith, from Grogans pub, said there’d been a lot of “really tough days” in the past year.
“Particularly around that time in the summer when there was talk of re-opening,” he said.
It was in early September that wet pubs were given the go-ahead that they could re-open in a few weeks. However, a deteriorating situation with Covid in Dublin meant that plans were shelved in the capital. And then, in mid October, the whole country entered Level 5.
“When you’ve geared yourself, mentally prepared, got all the training done, and then told ‘no’. It takes its toll.
Looking back at what happened, it might be a blessing in disguise we didn’t open for Christmas. But that was the toughest day of the year seeing other places opening up.
“I’m quite fortunate I live with my parents. But a lot of the staff have families, mortgages, rent to pay. They’re living on €350 a week, and it was €300 at one point for a while. I can only imagine how challenging it is.”
Going from being incredibly busy to having no events on at all was a bit of an adjustment for Best, but she said she is doing everything she can to make the most of it.
“We were on such a merry-go-round for years,” she said. “The business was so, so busy. It’s incredible the way the festival industry has exploded. From May to October, there were three-four big things on every weekend.
We were chasing our tails and it was getting to the point it was overstretched. It was really nice in a way not to spend a summer running around in fields.
Best said she’s treating this fallow time for her industry as a “learning opportunity”, to take a step back and plan how to do things more efficiently once they can do so again.
“The difficult thing now is the uncertainty going forward,” she said.
“We’ve no way of knowing when we’ll be able to book acts again. It’s hard not having a fixed date in your mind.
“But, on the other hand, we know we could put on an event to watch paint dry and people would go to it at this stage, just to get out of the house.”
Looking ahead
Best said that there has been contact with events promoters and contractors in the UK about the possibility of events there later in the summer, which may mean work coming her way. Boris Johnson’s roadmap out of lockdown would see the lifting of almost all restrictions by late June.
“I was on a call with a guy last week, and once that announcement was made his phone started hopping,” she said.
“He does equipment hire for events. But I think there’ll be a much bigger gap here. I think the licencing authorities will be nervous of okaying anything.”
She said it will likely be 2022 before we see any festivals of the size of Body & Soul in Ireland, but that events like these might be “smaller and more intimate” than before.
One area of concern is a brain drain in these industries as people out of work for so long have simply taken their skills and experience elsewhere.
“A lot of the crew and staff with their industry knowledge will have dissipated,” Best said.
“When they go into other industries, they’re welcomed with open arms. Stable jobs with 9-5 hours and weekends off – they’re probably not going to come back into the event industry. And that’s a shame.”
Carroll isn’t giving up the fight anytime soon but is realistic that it’ll take a long time for overseas tourism to return to its pre-2020 heights.
“It’s about survival at the moment,” he said. “The tourism industry has had knocks before. 9/11. The ash cloud. But this is the worst I’ve ever seen.
This year is survival. And the next year is recovery. Get that vaccine rollout ramped up. I don’t see us getting back to 2019 levels until around 2024.
Parsons will this weekend perform in her first gig online since the arrival of the pandemic.
“Yeah, I am a bit nervous,” she said. “I’d usually gauge the reaction of an audience and react to that. Now I’m singing into a computer.”
She said she fears that even when gigs are permitted to happen again, they could see venues at reduced capacity which in turns hits performers’ incomes.
“Bums on seats pay the salaries, and artists get paid last,” she said. “If venues are limited in the amount of people they bring in, that’ll mean less money all around.
“We’re going to be the first locked down and the last to be released. And we won’t be getting the same earnings as before this.”
The first gigs that Parsons has booked in are for her postponed tour of the Netherlands. That’s now re-scheduled for 2022.
“I’m feeling positive,” she added.
“I do a bit of teaching and supporting musicians through the Musicians Union of Ireland. The secret is to have a plan to do something different every day. [Singing] accidentally became a full-time job. It’s still my hobby. So it’s a great thing to have.”
Smith, who plans to emigrate in the near future, said that the pub industry will be facing difficulties even after they all manage to re-open.
“From the top down to the very bottom, anyone involved in the industry is definitely going to struggling,” he said.
“We’re not out of the woods once we-reopen. There’ll be a 12-month phase where places are bootstrapping, and money is going out as quickly as it comes in.
They’ll need time to get back on their feet. And it’s important they can keep those business supports after they re-open. So many jobs and livelihoods depend on it.
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And within the last 12 months our Government gave themselves 4 pay increases . While Pepole are Struggling to pay household bills let alone anything else.
@Derek Moean: lol
And since the end of the first lockdown the level of incompetence from the government has been staggering to put it mildly
@John O: they have done many things right. So many would have been lost without the PUP for example. And it appears that most countries have had problems and were writing the procedures manual as the pandemic evoked. So give it a rest you complete moaner.
@John O: I’m sure you’ll get plenty thumbs up.
Give it a rest will you.
@Paul Furey: is this your 365th whiz in bed, Paul
MAMA
@Paul Furey: nice & comfy there Paul getting your pup and listening to garbage from M-hole. What about the self employed n the Hospitality area over 65′s Nothing for 12 months
Without the pup there would of been major protests and riots as there is only so much people would take.
@Paul Furey: the biggest losers witout the pup would have wothout a doubt been the banks, imagine if a nation in lockdown with massive unemployment couldn’t pay their mortgage. I would argue that the pup was increased to 350 at the beginning from the planned 202 as everyone clearly pointed out we could not provide for our family AND pay a mortgage on 202 a week. Since the introduction of pup payments and the onset of covid closures none of our expenses as a family have decreased, the only decrease is our ability to earn. Mortgage / rent/ car insurance/ car tax. The only reduction I’ve seen is diesel bills which are balanced by the increased home electricity and heating as we are now in the house 24 hours a day
@Eugene Walsh: how path etic! Like everyone else I want to be working as the PUP does not cover all my monthly expenses, so I’m in trouble. Im at an age that no one wants to employ and I’ve tried. You’re actually a horr ible person. Defining everyone by your own twisted standards.
@Paul Furey: It was Mary Lou Mc Donald that insisted that we all got the PUP. The Government wanted to put everyone on €203, but she insisted that people should get paid their dues. I am not advocating for her, I am just stating a fact.
@Paul Furey: Actually a list was published during the week. It was of all European countries listing the grants and assistance that was given to businesses closed due to Covid. Ireland was last!! It made for pretty abysmal reading.
Dear God, what has happened us all? Squabbling who’s right and who’s wrong. I won’t mention who’s right or who’s wrong because my head is fried. I am going to use a new approach from here on and that is “sleep, work, and never read the paper, watch the news, and walk away when there is discussions on this covid.. Toodle- ooohh
@Jackie Reilly: Good idea, Jackie …. Bury your head in the sand and it’ll all go away …. I said it from the start that some tough decisions need to be made here, regarding risk of catching the disease, and the consequences of shutting everything down. Lockdowns are OTT & everything needs to re-open now.
Fantastic pub, the toasties, the creamy pint, permanent stained glass art work and the temporary artworks passing through, as well as those on the walls ;) always a great boozer to catch up with people you randomly met in town or just randomers you never met before. Something special about Grogans.
@SPQH: there really is. My last night out in town was in here. And as soon as it opens its doors I’ll be back in. A seat in Grogans on a Friday evening is the most valuable piece of real estate in Dublin. I remember they chose to close this weekend last year before they had to, because they said they couldn’t guarantee safe social distance. Meanwhile the temple bar leeches were cramming them in – hands touching hands – without a care. I presume Grogans aren’t paying rent and will be ok. But remember that so many pubs and restaurants may reopen but with different business owners and that there may be many stories of hardship behind the scenes…
@David Clements: it’s a great refuge from the hustle and bustle and yeah a seat on a Friday evening is gold dust. But I also miss McDaids, The Palace and the Long Hall. The sooner we get back the better. I’m getting sick of these widget cans.
@GrumpyAulFella: McDaids Guinness is unreal. I’d like to throw the Stags in there too as one of the Dublin classics, that snug, could spend a whole lockdown in there in comfort
Imagine this day last year our government were strong enough to take action that would have resulted in a completely different outcome. Like not letting 5000 Italian rugby fans land here for the weekend for starters. Like not allowing thousands to land in our airports every weekend while we are all forced to stay within our 5k limit.
Perhaps you could enjoy a pint in a brilliant pub like the one in this article.
@Batster: 5k was a luxury, they started us off at 2k.
@Batster: We still have an open border in the North that we cannot close, it is also debatable whether it is Constitutional to prevent Irish citizens from travelling also. To myself at least it is quite obvious why they did not do what you suggest, half of the issue with Brexit for the last 5 years was keeping the border opened after all.
Anyway, the vast majority of the deaths from covid were in the over 65′s, with a sizeable chunk (62% in total), particularly since January have been in nursing homes. Heads should roll over that, this is where they dropped the ball.
We have a CMO who would have the harshest level 5 restrictions apply to everyone possible as the singular method of virus prevention. We also have a head of modelling in NPHET who could not model a hat.
@Batster: Do you honestly believe if the Italian fans didn’t come over that the situation would have been much different? This is a transmissible virus in a globalised 21st century. It was always going to get here irrespective of decisions 12 months ago
@Bobby: Yes I do, northern Italy was the epicentre for Covid this tim last year
@Quia Timet: Hopefully heads will roll. Relatives of these poor people are taking a case. I sincerely hope they make them pay and pay dearly. One thing that will be remembered from this horrible time is how H.S.E and NPHET literally culled our elderly.
@Bobby: Dont forget same week we had 1000 arrive in the country for a conference on Alcohol. Coming from countries that already had high rates of covid . A conference organised, allowed and opened by Harris and Holohan.
People please feel some solidarity towards the people that will make your experience on getting a, meal, a pint, a gig popcorn at the cinema ,a taxi in the future a nice experience iam sure you will.
A year later and things are worse
Government will not be happy till no cases and that going to happen
We’re stuck with the virus and the weakest government ever
It also marks 5 months of fighting for a resolution with my local council over the ReStart Grant.
My premises (shut to customers since 12 March 2020) is in a council owned & operated building. My lease says rates are incl in my rent (which I’ve continued to pay all throughout).
Turns out the council were claiming the building as rates exempt as an art gallery so my application for funding was denied despite the incorrect lease, as was the appeal. I offered to register for rates for my premises individually which was denied.
It took an FOI request to find out that upon referral to the Dept Enterprise the council were advised they were in the wrong, the premises should be rated and to pay the grant to my business.
The council ignored this advice, seemingly as the Dept advice also stated that the council would be on the hook for the rates due to the clause in my lease, and would require a whole review of the building. Thus with the council potentially being on the hook for a lot of backdated rates for the building for the 15 odd other units within, they took the option of denying my application as approving same would have acknowledged the issue and forced the review. The cheaper option that was also in the council’s best interest was to deny my application to the detriment of my business.
Dept Enterprise don’t want to know and send me to the council. The council state they’ve nothing more to do with it and send me back to the Dept. No one wants to take responsibility. Along with issues experienced with DEASP last July that took almost 2 months to resolve what little faith I had in public institutions, or being “in this together” is completely gone. My wife is still working so money is ok-ish but I’m hanging on by a thread and ended up being prescribed anti depressants by my GP after digging myself into a hole thinking that a business I fought so hard to build up while still working full time to a point where I could take the plunge & be self employed in the best interest of my family was failing due to my own faults. I was blaming myself for things outside of my control and being treated like a nuisance by the powers that be didn’t help.
This has been my COVID-19 lockdown journey. I have no faith in any politician stating platitudes at press conferences. They’re unaffected and got pay rises to boot. I understand the need for lockdowns, I understand why my industry is one of the most affected. I just want a little fairness and not be made feel like I’m trying to scam funds I don’t believe I’m entitled to, which have been denied through no fault of my own (I could totally accept if the grant application was denied due to my error, but it was the council’s error they don’t want to own).
@Josephus Miller: I know that its a long shot but that sounds like something you should bring to your local TD
@John Kelly: Any that have replied are getting no joy from either the council or dept either.
@Josephus Miller: Sorry to hear this, under the Restart Grant scheme the premises doesn’t have to be rated but just rateable (which it would be if it wasn’t listed as rate exempt as a gallery, I presume you aren’t operating a gallery or other rate exempt business) so your premises would qualify. I was processing these grants last year and would have paid out going on the infomation you supplied, our view was we wanted these businesses to survive rather than close permanently, funding supplied was 100% from the dept. so it wasn’t costing the councils anything from their own resources. Keep fighting and maybe stop paying your rent until the matter is resolved.
“what’s another year” it looks like !!!
Reeling in the years is going start getting boring with nothing but Covid for 2 or 3 years…
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