O guardian of the dark, keeper of creeping
shadows, o night I’m standing in…
And you, timid stars, who wait for her arrival
to shine…
And you, Hecate, Hecate, Hecate,
who knows and keeps the herbal secrets,
the potion’s potency, the rites of sorcery…
And you, Earth, who grows the elements,
you world of winds and waters, you gods
of woods and watchers of the dead, I need
you all.
It is through your power that I have reversed
the river’s current as the mute banks gaped.
Haven’t we stilled the trashing seas,
convened councils of clouds, bagged and shook
out the very winds? With words I’ve split
a writhing serpent, drawn down boulders,
plucked an oak as easily as a flower. I can
shake the very mountains and open
the mouth of the ground in a groan. The shades
I can make walk from their tombs. Even you,
noon, I can drop in this stream like a white pebble.
The sun, my grandfather’s carriage,
I can sing pale. I can staunch the wound
even of pink dawn.
But it is you, who, helping me,
tarnished the bronze of the bulls and bent
their necks to plow. And you who tangled
the serpent’s scions and saved my Jason
in the ring. And it is you who, singing
through him, put that watchful and wise
beast to his first sleep, and so brought
the golden fleece—power of powers—
to Greece.
In a Dark Wood
Why am I so jealous of the duck
That has been swallowed by the wolf?
Because he has slippers
and a peg on which to hang his coat
and a rug on which to place the slippers?
In the same way, I wish I was the bunny,
always, but especially in Spring,
because I think of his hook,
and the tree he’s in
and the snow outside
and all the hawks he doesn’t
hear hunting, until he does.
The Holding Pattern “Just then a plane jumped up and ripped the sky to shreds” -K. Vonnegut
The F-12 fighter jet jumps
through a hole in the wall
at the café, at the museum, at the lunch
I am enjoying, at the moment
I am thinking of saying the bit about
my animal’s charging hard
and my man’s restraining grip—
the whip he uses to keep
the beast at bay—
how his forearms tire, how
his fingers ply at the leash.
The line was its own pastiche
of images—the broken clause, dramatic
pauses meant to make the thing sound
ex temporae—like I hadn’t come
up with it the day before, like I
hadn’t been dying to say it for its sharp
“ar” sound from “hard” and how that slammed
into “charged” and made the thing
sound sexed and desperate, as indeed,
I meant it.
This before the razor-winged marten
whose dive-bomb corkscrew threw an element
of reverie into an afternoon I’d mapped
out as heartful, profound, became
in the turn, her bright laughing’s
little explosions on the ground.
Feature Image: J. M. W. Turner’s Vision of Medea (1828).
Her voice echoed, in ripples, wave after wave. Outside an open window, fronds of the palm tree danced.
“Are you Ok? Here, Ruth. Drink that.”
A pair of green birds chased each other flew past the Chinaberry tree. Laughing or fighting, their feathers were a lighter green against its dark leaves. I despised that tree. The cocksure way it seeded its poisonous self everywhere with impunity. It even flowered in a cruel way. A beautiful bunch of blooms, their purple eyes narrow with suspicion. Not a tree for a farm. And though Avram only approved of trees that bore edible fruit. Somehow this Chinaberry avoided detection, the sapling was tolerated, and survived.
“Ruth, you should have eaten something. Here, have a date.”
Those enormous eyes were looking at me, as I tasted something sweet in my mouth. I felt peaceful, but puzzled. What were these tunnels? So dark. Deep. And the heavy blob of woman lying on the tile floor. Tiles that were grey and speckled with black dots now vibrating in and out of focus. A river of sweetness ran through me. Everything became clearer. More mundane. That blob on the floor was me.
“What happened?” Tina smiled. Tender. Discreet. “You should have had something to eat”
“Yes, I wasn’t paying attention. But, what are you doing here? How did you know?”
“Rosie called. She was worried when you didn’t answer.” Tina paused to pick up the fallen chair. “Can you get up? Slowly I started to… Didn’t really want to move. But I would have to get up sometime. Tina didn’t offer her hand in help, and I didn’t blame her. Too much of a challenge for her small size. This is not an age to take chances. She stood up, looking at me like an insurance assessor evaluates damage. I managed to sit up, on the floor.
“No broken bones. Pain anywhere?
I shook my head. We heard a car drive through the gate that should’ve been there. When it came to a stop, the door slammed shut.
“Are you expecting someone?” Tina went over to the window.
“Who is it?”
“Can’t see.”
“Ooh, it could be Osher. For weeks now, I’ve been asking him to come and help me. Tina still peered out the window.
“Yes, it’s Osher. What is he going to do?”
“Ruth!” he shouted from below, “It’s Me. Osher!”
Then his footsteps were climbing the stairs and the door opened. Osher didn’t conceal his surprise.
“What happened?”
“I fell.”
“She fell.” echoed Tina.
Osher crossed the room to help me up. Amazing, how strong young men are.
“So… Why did you fall?”
Tina’s face twisted in to a frown as she bent to pick up my errand slippers.
“I just forgot to eat. So my blood sugar dipped. But I’m fine now. Want some
coffee before you start?”
“No time. I must get on with it. I can only spare a couple of hours.”
“Gosh, you’re always so busy! Nobody has time anymore. How did we ever manage in the old days?”
Osher was already bounding down the stairs.
Tina asked, “Shall I make some coffee?
“I better eat something more. Where is my syringe? I need an injection.
“Good idea. Tina was already on the case. Osher is lovely, isn’t he?”
“Yes. Good person. The only one who’d come and help.”
“Why do you bother? No one else does”
Tina was referring to the other widows who lived on our street. There must be at least seven of them. It was rare to see them out. Instead, they each shuttered themselves from the heat, in cool dark houses. Watching TV I guess. All day long. Just like me. But I couldn’t let all these trees go to rack and ruin. Avram loved this place, and he would turn over in his grave if one tree died. In truth, I love the trees too. Poor Avram. You know…I think he gave up and died because he couldn’t live with not working anymore. But fair due to Osher for always coming to help Avram. Tina busied herself as if she were burying a secret.
“Have you seen Yvonne lately?”
Yvonne Cohen was my next door neighbour and perhaps the first one to be widowed on our street. Not surprising. She was just a kid when she married a man already past his prime!
“No one ever sees her. You know that,” answered Tina, putting a couple of glasses full of hot coffee on the table.
“I don’t know what she does indoors all day long. Does she ever go out?”
“I see Vera sometimes, when she goes to the shop.”
Vera was the woman most recently widowed. She lived in the 5th house on the street. That is how it worked: the houses were in rows either side of the road, and the farm fields were behind each house.
Some of the widows let their fields, to be farmed by some of younger men, who already had their own fields and were looking for more land. Doodi used my land and paid me peanuts. But that’s all he could afford in order to still make a profit. And a monkey can’t afford to sneeze at peanuts. Otherwise, all I’ve got is my miserly pension.
“You’re so lucky to have your husband, Tina,” Nodding Tina sipped her coffee. She appeared pale and preoccupied. “You can’t imagine how lonely it is. When Avram died, it was like someone just switched off the light. I’ve no one to talk to. Nobody to cook for. I watch politicians argue on tv, and when I turn around to say something to Avram, he isn’t there!
I wonder what Osher is doing?”
I walked over to the window. He was pruning the lemon trees and watering them at the same time. “Osher! Don’t forget to do the pomegranates.” He looked up smiling.
“If I have time…”
“Time! Time! That’s all everyone talks about. No one has time except me!”
“You said you were going to eat something, reminded Tina.
“I’ll just grab a banana. I can’t be bothered to cook just for myself.”
“I have some chicken stew and rice at home. I’ll bring you some later.” Tina decided.
“No Tina, I’m alright. Tomorrow is Friday and Rosie is coming. She’ll help me to cook for Saturday and I’ll have loads for next week too.”
Tina’s eyes seemed far away. She was somewhere deep inside herself. I felt that she saw me through a veil. The breeze wafting through the window was warm and the birds sounded so cheerful. Well, at least they sounded as if they hadn’t a care in the world.
“My daughters want me to sell the farm and move closer to them.”
“That’s an idea.” said Tina
“I don’t want to. It’s home here. How can I leave the place where we lived and worked for sixty years. All the trees. The shrubs. These green birds…they’ve been here for years. Even the traffic noise from the highway. This is what I’m used to.”
“Home is where your family is. What’s the point of being here all alone. Cut your losses, forget all that you have planted. Life is short, but you still have time to enjoy yourself.”
Tina spoke sensibly but also from a distance.
“Thank God you are here. I said. What would I have done without you?”
Tina stood up and went to look out. The afternoon was slowly becoming evening.
“How about going for a walk tomorrow?”
“I can’t say Ruth. I have to go to the hospital.”
“What is it?”
“Oh, just some tests.”
“Is everything ok?” I was beginning to feel strange. Tina trembled a little, and I felt my heart dropping down to my ankles.
“Ruth, I’m dying.”
“What do you mean? We’re all on the way there…”
“No. This is different. I’ve got the big C. I don’t have long.”
I didn’t know what to say. I was numb. Not Tina. The only friend I have. I know, it’s selfish but right away I thought, what about me?
“I’m sure the doctors will find a solution. They have new stuff coming out all the time. Don’t say that you are dying. Don’t say that.”
Osher was running back up the stairs again, and in a flash he stood at the open door, with a smile. “I’m going now, but I did manage to do the pomegranates. I’ll try and come another day. There is just so much that needs to be done.” Turning to go he asked “Why the long face? Not happy?”
“Yes, Osher, of course I’m happy.”
“Well, you don’t look it,” he grumbled.
“Some people are never satisfied. I’m going too,” announced Tina, “Or Albert will think that I ran away with the plumber.” Osher shrugged his shoulders and I felt better. At least she hadn’t lose her sense of humor.
“Come back tomorrow!” I shouted after her. Startled, she spun around to remind me Friday was Rosie’s day, which allowed me one last whisper, “To tell me what the doctor says.”
“I will. Don’t worry.” And with that, Tina was gone.
Another tree in the Central Highlands loses all its leaves
A girl sits on a visiting diplomat’s lap
Someone organises a Nelson Rockefeller look-alike party
which Henry Kissinger attends
An election result somewhere is declared null and void for its own good
An interrogating officer switches on the electricity
A government spokesman interrupts his denial to wish Dr Kissinger well
Another tin of Heinz baked beans is sold in China
and the CEO personally thanks Henry Kissinger
A ginger cat named Agent Orange leaps down off the garden wall
A baby slides from the womb with a surprise third arm
When Henry Kissinger again fails to die:
A ginger cat named Agent Orange leaps back onto its garden wall
A government we didn’t like is overthrown in a military coup,
welcomed by the European Union
A hut is set on fire for the greater good,
the European Union calls for an inquiry
Someone dies of politically necessary starvation
but that someone is never Henry Kissinger
A bomb is dropped on someone whose name you’ll never have to pronounce
because it’s not Henry Kissinger
For its birthday, a baby gets Spina bifida
A Bengali family have all their arms sawn off.
Fifty bodies topple into the sea off Indonesia
but none of them are Henry Kissinger
Each time Henry Kissinger again fails to die
Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. Mr Gradgrind from Charles Dickens’s Hard Times (1854).
These are facts the heart can feel; yet they call for careful study before they become clear to the intellect. Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1955).
The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre wrote that ‘facts, like telescopes and wigs for gentlemen, were a seventeenth-century invention.’ The term is derived from the Latin ‘factum,’ meaning ‘a deed, an action and sometimes in scholastic Latin an event or occasion.’ MacIntyre was not dismissing the importance of gleaning evidence from sources, or deriving conclusions from scientific studies, but asserting that no fact is ever ‘independent of judgment.’[i]
Over the course of the current pandemic, as a recent opinion piece in the British Medical Journal puts it:
uncontested facts—things that are ascertainable, reproducible, transferable and predictable—tend to be elusive. Most decisions must be based on information that is flawed (imperfectly measured, with missing data), uncertain (contested, perhaps with low sensitivity or specificity), proximate (relating to something one stage removed from the real phenomenon of interest) or sparse (only available for some aspects of the problem).
Similarly, the historian E. H. Carr considered facts to be ‘like fish on the fishmonger’s slab. The historian collects them, takes them home and cooks and serves them.’ Thus partisan outlooks have always coloured understandings of historic events. Carr recalls: ‘Our picture of Greece in the 5th century BC is defective not primarily because so many of the bits have been accidentally lost, but because it is, by and large, the picture formed by a tiny group of people in the city of Athens.’
Journalists and editors in writing ‘the first rough draft of history’ therefore make judgments in determining facts. Unsurprisingly, during a global pandemic Covid-19 deaths and diagnoses are given greater factual weight than the equivalent statistics for heart disease, cancer or influenza. This is quite apart from deaths in developing countries from tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria, which are set to double this year in part owing to the intense focus on Covid-19 – particularly in Africa which by mid-August had experienced just 23,000 deaths from Covid-19.
Any journalist’s judgment in determining facts is not necessarily a product of sinister machinations, but orthodoxies and received opinions are easily enshrined in news organisations that are patronised, or owned outright, by vested interests, which throughout history have ‘manufactured’ consent.
Moreover, as Noam Chomsky put it in a famous interview with Andrew Marr, there is ‘a filtering system’ that starts in kindergarten which ‘selects for obedience and subordination.’ Chomsky intimates that most journalists that rise to the top of major news organisations are conformists, including Marr.
The pandemic has exposed the fragility of contemporary journalism in the era of the Internet, which, arguably, has exhibited over-deference to scientific authority, even where those authorities have proffered accounts that have proved wildly inaccurate, or contradictory. This passivity seems to be a feature of what Nick Davies has described as ‘churnalism’, whereby journalists become passive processors of ‘unchecked, second-hand material, much of it contrived by PR to serve a political or commercial interest.’
Fake News
In the Internet era we have witnessed an onslaught of so-called ‘fake news,’ which are accounts departing from journalistic convention that enter the realm of fiction and outright distortion.
This is not, however, entirely novel. It is axiomatic that truth is the first casualty of war, a metaphor constantly applied to this pandemic. Journalists embedded in power structures have long spun outright falsehoods. We need only cast our mind back to uncritical coverage of claims around Weapons of the Mass Destruction prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, or the misleading accounts of Cuba in the U.S. press.
Nonetheless, in this context such claims have become more outrageous, and even comical, with social media – Facebook in particular – acting as a conduit for misinformation from non-mainstream outlets, granting individuals unprecedented platforms to project fears, fantasies and delusions that are often manipulated by shadowy agencies, such as Cambridge Analytica.
An apparent antidote to fake news has arrived in the form of fact-checking websites. While these may succeed in exposing outright falsehoods – which is undoubtedly important in an era of climate change – we should also examine which facts are being checked and also, why there are discrepancies in mainstream accounts. The funding for such sites also merits scrutiny. The facts do not speak for themselves.
That global alliance was launched in January by the Poynter Institute:
when the spread of the virus was restricted to China but already causing rampant misinformation globally. The World Health Organization now classifies this issue as an infodemic — and the Alliance is on the front lines in the fight against it.
This global response is in line with a war-gaming exercise for a global pandemic (coincidentally a fictional coronavirus: Coronavirus Associated Pulmonary Syndrome) called Event 201 organised by The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In this exercise where no one has immunity from that virus, the model predicts the pandemic will only end when 80 percent of the world’s population has been infected, which takes 18 months and results in 65 million deaths.
The participants addressed the issue of disinformation and misinformation from ‘state sponsored groups’ and specifically pointed to the importance of ‘fact-checking efforts.’
Notably, the Poynter Institute has received charitable donations from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation of $382,000 in 2015, earmarked for improving ‘the accuracy in worldwide media of claims related to global health and development.’ The organisation now receives donations from, among others, Facebook, Google News Initiative and climate-change denying Charles Koch.
More relevantly to Ireland, in carrying out its fact-checking remit www.journal.ie has bolstered the Irish government’s emphasis on the serious danger posed by Covid-19 to all age groups. Consolidating government messaging during a pandemic may be considered a civic duty, but it can also over-simplify “elusive” facts that merit revisiting.
On July 24th, Radio DJ Niall Boylan’s tweet from July 14th claiming just eight people under the age of sixty-five had died from Covid-19 became the subject of a fact-checking inquiry.
It’s shocking that only 8 people under 65 in Ireland died from Covid 19 and we destroyed & continue to destroy the economy. Every one of the 1700 deaths matter but most did not die from Covid 19 and just happened to have a positive test.We need logical responses & not hysteria
The relevant fact checker, Rónán Duffy, recalled that the Health Protection Surveillance Centre had recorded a total of 1,763 deaths related to Covid-19, of which 113 related to people under the age of 65. Duffy thus concluded that ‘At the time that Boylan shared the original tweet on 14 July, the number of Covid-19 deaths among people under 65 was 113, not eight’
In response to a request for clarification, however, Boylan said he specifically used the term ‘from Covid-19,′ not ‘with Covid-19′. He went on to argue that it was important to distinguish deaths among people with and without underlying health conditions, ‘in other words people who had died from coronavirus.’ He claimed the figure of eight people was a direct quote from a statement made by Independent T.D. Michael McNamara, who said at a sitting of the Special Committee on Covid-19 that only eight of those under the age of sixty-five who died did not have an underlying condition.
Duffy concluded the claim was ‘misleading because it omits crucial details that may lead to readers forming an incorrect conclusion.’
Boylan’s tweet may indeed have been unsatisfactory, but the original death toll was itself a simplification: a bald statistic that omitted to mention that the vast majority of those who died were afflicted with underlying conditions. Perhaps some of these were patients would have succumbed to a respiratory infection in an ‘ordinary’ year, considering influenza or pneumonia are the cause of up to a thousand deaths a year in Ireland.
A Covid-19 infection may not have been the primary cause of death; or an infection could have accelerated by a short time that mortality. Any death comes as a shock to those left behind, and all reasonable efforts should be undertaken to preserve life, but it is not uncommon for patients weakened by long-term illness to succumb to respiratory infections, such as Covid-19, rather than the chronic degenerative disease to which the cause of death is ordinarily ascribed. Members of the public unacquainted with medical science may not be aware of this. According to one G.P. consulted in researching this article attributing cause of death is never an exact science.
A more thorough fact-checking exercise might examine the nature of comorbidities or underlying conditions. Conditions are described in papers, but a loose definition can easily yield to wild claims around the number of those in the Irish population who are at risk of death from the virus.
Yet a recent article in Nature emphasises that age is by by far the strongest predictor of an infected person’s risk of dying :
For every 1,000 people infected with the coronavirus who are under the age of 50, almost none will die. For people in their fifties and early sixties, about five will die — more men than women. The risk then climbs steeply as the years accrue.
The suggestion that 1.5 million among an Irish population of less than five million that is the youngest in the E.U. are susceptible to death from Covid-19 is a wild exaggeration.
Excess mortality was found to be 1,072 (95% CI: 851 to 1,290) between 11 March 2020 and 16 June 2020 inclusive. The officially reported number of COVID-19 deaths for the same period was 1,709. Therefore, the estimated excess mortality is less than the officially reported COVID-19-related mortality by 637 cases.
Similarly in the U.K. Dr Jason Oke of the Centre of Evidence-Based Medicine in Oxford has found that almost one third of Covid-19 deaths in July and August were ‘primarily caused by other conditions’. There is therefore significant doubt over whether the virus was the primary factor in all 1,777 of these deaths.
Also, the coroner’s office was not conducting post-mortems on suspected cases and testing was pulled from the entire care home sector for three weeks at the height of the pandemic, meaning in many cases doctors were making educated guesses that Covid-19 was the cause of death.
Some people find it hard to believe that when Care Home residents were in the greatest need for testing and diagnostics, testing service was pulled from the entire sector for 3 weeks, to preserve test supplies for the general public. Most died in Homes many/most were not tested. pic.twitter.com/EFi8XsRqER
Then CMO Tony Houlihan also acknowledged: ‘Clinically, the “index of suspicion” for the disease would be “a good deal higher” than would normally be the case for flu.’
RTÉ’s Feargal Bowers
The Irish public service broadcaster RTÉ says that ‘nine out of ten people in Ireland say RTÉ has been their main media source for accessing information on Covid-19.’ The broadcaster recently launched an initiative against fake news entitled: ‘The truth matters at RTÉ – here’s why,’ claiming:
Now that society is grappling with the challenges of a pandemic, and the inescapable anxiety that comes with it, the potential for manipulation of the facts is huge.
But RTÉ has at times provided an unreliable account of the danger posed by Covid-19 to the Irish public. Throughout the pandemic RTÉ’s health correspondent Feargal Bowers has pointed to the exceptional danger posed by Covid-19, which fits within what Nancy Tomes has called the “killer germ genre of journalism”.[ii]
This virus could visit any of us, at any time, in our homes, or in work.
It does not make an appointment.
Going outside involves a certain roll of the dice.
Inside you may also encounter this intruder.
Like any lottery, there are things people can do to improve their chances.
And hold onto the most valuable prize of all – your life.
In fact, we are dealing with a virus with an infection fatality rate below 1% according to Nature magazine, or ‘possibly as low as 0.2% or 0.3%,’ according to Lone Simonsen, a professor of population health sciences at Roskilde University in Denmark who has worked at the CDC and National Institutes of Health in the U.S.; others such as Professor Johan Gisecke, a member of the WHO’s Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards (STAG-IH) previously suggested a figure as low as 0.1%. The IFR has varied from region to region, with New York, Madrid, London and Lombardy particularly badly hit, but in Africa, as indicated, the IFR appears to be exceptionally low.
With better treatments – especially the use of the generic drug Dexamethasone – and protection of vulnerable groups, chances of survival have improved since the early stages of the pandemic. This seems evident from the relatively low death toll currently witnessed across Europe, including in Ireland, despite rising case numbers. Many of us also harbour T-cell immunity from other coronaviruses, as we will see.
Yet Bowers has continued to make factually incorrect claims in a succession of articles, including on September 5th, which stated: ‘The World Health Organization says data to date suggests 80% of Covid-19 infections are mild or asymptomatic, 15% are severe infection, requiring oxygen and 5% are critical, requiring ventilation.’
Remarkably, Bowers seems to have copy and pasted that information from a WHO Situation Report from March 6th, stating ‘data to date suggest that 80% of infections are mild or asymptomatic, 15% are severe infection, requiring oxygen and 5% are critical infections, requiring ventilation.’[iii]
The continued use of data from March undermines RTÉ’s credibility and should be a source of embarrassment.
IFR or CFR?
In a widely circulated tweet at the height of the pandemic then Minister for Health and current Minister for Higher Education, Simon Harris confounded the Case Fatality Rate (CFR), which is the percentage of deaths from diagnosed cases, with the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR), which is the percentage who die after contracting the virus. This surely elevated fears around the ‘deadly’ virus.
Our world is now full of statistics and numbers. I wanted to share an important one with you – our latest figures show 19,470 people have recovered from #COVIDー19. That is 84.3% of those who have contracted this virus.
More recently Fianna Fáil TD Cathal Crowe displayed the same confusion when he called a TikTok video ‘almost treasonous’ and ‘only a step or two away from being culpable for manslaughter.’
He added:
And at a time when those who contract Covid – there’s a fatality rate at the moment in this country of 6.2% of those who contract Covid – I think their actions in trying to draw the Covid virus onto themselves and pass it onto others, I think it’s only a step or two away from being culpable for manslaughter.
Reference to the CFR may give the impression the virus is more lethal than we now know it is. Raising alarm bells may serve a short term end of confining people to their homes, but will ultimately only lead to distrust as reliable scientific information is now easily accessible.
A similar caution should apply to emphasis by the current Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly on so-called ‘Long Covid.’ In June the UK’s Covid Symptom Study indicated that ‘one in ten people may still have symptoms after three weeks, and some may suffer for months.’ But the study fails to distinguish between asymptomatic and symptomatic cases, implying this is a reference to only confirmed symptomatic cases. Anecdotally, one Dublin GP consulted said he had not encountered a single case in his practice.
Long Covid appears to fit into the category of a post-viral syndrome, or post-viral fatigue which ‘refers to a sense of tiredness and weakness that lingers after a person has fought off a viral infection. It can arise even after common infections, such as the flu.’ The prevalence at this stage is unclear.
Mortality Projections
The medical historian Mark Honigsbaum writes: ‘by alerting us to new sources of infection and framing particular behaviours as “risky,” it is medical science – and the science of epidemiology in particular – that is often the source of … irrational and often prejudicial judgments … knowledge is constantly giving birth to new fears and anxieties.’[iv]
Epidemiology cannot be an exact science as it projects into an uncertain future. Michael Levitt has claimed that epidemiologists see their function, ‘not as getting things correct, but as preventing an epidemic. So therefore if they say it is 100-times worse than it’s going to be, then it’s ok.’ This approach may explain why a senior Irish health official told the Sunday Business Post in March that ‘1.9 million could be infected and become sick with the new coronavirus.’
But crying wolf with claims that prove wildly inaccurate over the course of a long pandemic cannot easily be repeated. It corrodes trust in scientific authority, which is an important consideration in an era of climate change.
Among the scientists that have risen to prominence over the course of the pandemic is Professor Sam McConkey. On March 11thhe predicted ‘there could be between 80,000 and 120,000 deaths in Ireland from coronavirus.’ McConkey has not been adequately held to account for the inaccuracy of this prediction, yet his projections continue to be circulated:
Higgins recalls the country went into lockdown in two stages. ‘The “first measures” were on March 12th with school closures, social distancing and a ban on large gatherings …. Then on March 28th, we began the ‘full lockdown,’ with non-essential workplaces shut and the 2km rule.’
Higgins worked from the assumption that symptoms manifest after five days, and that deaths, on average, occur after twenty. He calculated that ‘the March 28th lockdown should have led to a peak in deaths taking place over 20 days later, any date after April 17th,’ which he said is ‘pretty much what the headline data shows. April 20th saw the largest number of new deaths.’
‘However’, he added, ‘we know that the date of death being announced is several days *after* the death actually took place,’ which, he reckoned, was typically about two days. Therefore, ‘the peak is more likely around April 15th.’
‘The problem is’ he said ‘that’s 2 days before the March 28th “full lockdown” should have had an effect.’ His conclusion was that ‘the full lockdown wasn’t the main cause for peak deaths!’, the implications of this were ‘profound’ he argued. He argued that ‘the social distancing alone (between March 12th and 28th) was the main driver of #FlattenTheCurve.’
Based on Higgins’s assessment, the laws introduced on March 12th provided sufficient space for hospitals to handle a surge in cases that could have led to avoidable deaths from hospitals being overstretched. One may question O’Higgins’s assessment, but at least he has crunched the numbers, unlike O’Neill it would appear, who has offered no proof for his claim.
Forming Memories…
Another scientist to have gained a platform has been, Dr Tomás Ryan, a Trinity colleague of O’Neill’s, who is widely touted asan expert authority on this pandemic, despite being a neuroscientist, with no publications listed on Google Scholar related to contagious diseases or public health. Nor does he have a medical background. A recent paper, from June 2020 is entitled: ‘Memory: It’s Not a Lie if You Believe It.’
Advocating a suppression of the virus in ‘the paper of record’ on June 10th, Ryan claimed that a strategy of ‘living with the virus,’ would involve:
a cycle of successive lockdowns [which] would need to continue four to seven times until we reach a stage of herd immunity, with at least 60 per cent of the population infected. The health cost of this approach would be about 50,000 deaths.
On March 17th, 2020, Mark Landler and Stephen Castle in the New York Times wrote: ‘It wasn’t so much the numbers themselves, frightening though they were, as who reported them: Imperial College London.’ Due to the professor’s WHO ties, the authors noted, Imperial was ‘treated as a sort of gold standard, its mathematical models feeding directly into government policies.’ Yet despite a chaotic response from the Federal authorities, the U.S. death toll from Covid-19 remains below two hundred thousand, with daily deaths decreasing according to the New York Times.
Contrary to Ryan’s stark warning, Ireland has registered just over fifty deaths, as of September 20th, since the start of July.
A More Nuanced Approach
One-sided reporting of ‘facts’ around Covid-19 in Ireland is consistent with a concerted global effort emphasising the unprecedented danger posed by Covid-19. This account is predicated on the assumption that a reliable vaccine is the only way to bring the pandemic under control.
As mentioned, however, the pessimistic projections of Professor Niall Ferguson and others have proved unfounded, and recently the WHO’s Mike Ryan warned there is no guarantee that a vaccine will ever be found.
This leaves us in a position of zugzwang, a term which Emeritus Professor of Public Health at Edinburgh University Raj Bhopal borrows from the game of chess, meaning when the obligation to make a move in one’s turn leaves one in a serious, often decisive, disadvantage. He concludes:
The balance between the damage caused by COVID-19 and that caused by lockdowns needs quantifying. Public debate, including on population immunity, informed by epidemiological data, is now urgent.
Hearteningly, after a relatively heavy death toll in the spring, having avoided lockdown, Sweden’s case numbers have remained below the European average throughout September – lower even than its high-performing Scandinavian neighbour Norway.
This supports an hypothesis that a herd immunity threshold could lie at around 10-20%, ‘considerably lower than the minimum coverage needed to interrupt transmission by random vaccination,’ according to the University of Strathclyde’s Professor Gabriela M. Gomes et al. Professor Sunetra Gupta’s group at Oxford University have put the figure as low as 10%.
The scale of pre-existing immunity to Covid-19 is discussed in a recent article in the British Medical Journal. The authors remind us that the ‘research offers a powerful reminder that very little in immunology is cut and dried.’ Yet there has been little debate on the crucial question of herd or population immunity in the Irish media. This would involve an age-targeted strategy that takes account of the significant health impacts of lockdowns, especially on younger age groups.
Yes, my impression is also that most infectious disease epidemiologist favor an age-targeted strategy over general lockdowns. Among other scientists, most are silent, for obvious reasons, while almost all the vocal ones favor general age-wide lockdowns.
We are now beginning to witness the emergence of a recognisably left-wing opposition to lockdowns as herd immunity ceases to be a dirty word; while Bill Gates has acknowledged: ‘the initial vaccine won’t be ideal in terms of its effectiveness against sickness and transmission. It may not have a long duration.’
Lack of ICU Capacity
Facts around Covid-19 remain keenly contested among scientists. It may well be that the extreme precaution advocated by the Irish government is indeed justified, but it is incumbent on the Irish media to validate carefully all claims, and permit frank debate to occur. Politicians can be forgiven for erring in not giving an accurate picture at the height of a pandemic, but more honest conversations are necessary as we move forward. It is incumbent on journalists to hold politicians, and scientists, to account.
Unfortunately Ireland’s dysfunctional system of public health creates additional risks that discourages any change in approach, and perhaps explains an apparent faith in a reliable vaccine being produced.
At the start of the pandemic Ireland had half the number of ICU beds and staffing compared to other E.U. countries. By the start of May, however, according to Feargal Bowers (who presumably can be relied on in this instance) there were 417 units; but by the start of June, that figure was 381; July 252; August 276. At the start of September it was 356. But, as of mid-September the number of ICU beds open and staffed is 278. Under questioning from Michael McNamara in the Dáil, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that just twenty-three had been added since the start of the pandemic.
Under-resourcing of the health system might best explain the ultra-cautious and draconian approach adopted by the Irish government, which is increasingly out of step with most its European partners,where social life has been permitted to resume under restrictions.
Feature Image: Daniele Idini
[i] MacIntyre, Whose Justice: Which Rationality?, University of Notre Dame Press, Indiana, 1988, p.357.
[ii] Mark Honigsbaum, The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria and Hubris, C Hurst, London, 2020, p.75.
The pandemic has changed life as we know it. We are dealing with the ‘New Abnormal’ where certain aspects of life, such as our café and pub culture are no longer viable. Alas, many places have closed down permanently due to reduced customer footfall and loss of incomes.
So, what does this mean for our social lives? As social animals we need a certain level of sociability for our mental wellbeing. This teaches us valuable life lessons for survival in different situations. We socialize to meet new people for friendship or to meet partners. Socialising differs from age group to age group. Cafés and pubs are the most common areas across generations in most countries.
In Ireland, cafés and coffee shops now operate on a socially distanced basis. Many have developed outdoor seating, which is a fantastic addition on those rare occasions of sunny weather in Ireland.
For the younger generation in pre-Covid times, socialising on weekends meant pre-drinks in someone’s house and then piling into a taxi or bus to get into town. The bars and clubs would be heaving, and you’d brush by strangers on the way to buy a drink. When it got warm, you’d nip outside to the smoking area to cool down and have a chat with friends even if you didn’t smoke.
The nights out were great. But waking up the following day at least €40 down and a pounding headache, you would have to wonder, was it really worth it? Could there be a better way to socialize?
In today’s pandemic circumstances we have an opportunity to find other ways of remaining sociable, yet safe from contagion. Phase Four of the lockdown easing measures involving the reopening of pubs has been put on hold until the 18th of September. So for now we still have to book a table to have a meal if we want a drink for the allotted time, give or take.
It is easy for some premises that already served food. But it is a bit of a pain knowing that you’re spending more than you want, all for the sake of a socially-distanced drink.
Temple Bar, Dublin. 27 March 2020. Daniele Idini/Cassandra Voices
It seems as if Germany is in two minds over how to move forward with a social experiment that went ahead in Leipzig on the 22nd of August and an anti-restriction protest being witnessed in Berlin at the start of the month.
The experiment equipped 4,000 pop music fans with tracking gadgets and bottles of fluorescent disinfectant. This is designed to allow scientists gain a clearer picture of how the spread of Covid-19 can be prevented at large indoor concerts. We’ll find out from this how easy it will be to return to a level of pre-Covid normalcy when the results are known.
Meanwhile, in Berlin on August 29th a protest against Covid-19 measures went ahead that brought out an undisclosed number of people of varying opinions on the restrictions. Many chose to avoid wearing face masks or social distance, despite the urgings of police over megaphones. A similar protest also went ahead in Dublin and also featured a lack of masks and social distancing.
Open-air Concerts
On the 11th of August an open-air concert took place at the Virgin Money Unity Arena in Gosforth Park, Newcastle, at which people were fenced off into private pens at a six feet distance with a maximum of five people for each one. This could be the short-term future of concerts and would certainly allow events to proceed and may even improve on certain aspects of the experience!
The UK’s First Socially Distanced Concert, the Virgin Money Unity Arena was built in Gosforth Park, Newcastle. The concert venue extends 480,000 square feet (or 45,000 square meters) and has 500 viewing spaces (some refer to them as “pods”), with a total of 2.500 attendees. pic.twitter.com/wQsDfp4pIj
However, in Ireland, we have not been as lucky with the weather as in Britain, which experienced a summer heatwave. Clearly it is more viable to put on outdoor concerts in warmer countries than Ireland. We do, however, have the space for outdoor concerts with the likes of Phoenix Park and other large green areas such as the Punchestown racecourse, where the Oxygen festival was held, close to Dublin city. But without a large marquee for concerts, which maintains open-air ventilation, it’s unlikely that many concerts will be able to proceed outdoors, as we enter the cooler part of the year.
In Switzerland, clubs reopened in June without physical distancing and at a reduced capacity. The creation of the Swiss Night Pass, a digital ticket, ensures that clubs, bars, and events have a list of attendees with their contact information for tracing. This became mandatory after revellers failed to provide correct information. Six people contracted the virus after a man tested positive after attending the Flamingo Club in Zurich in June, but otherwise, surprisingly, these venues have not been the occasion for super-spreader events.
Many countries plan to reopen nightclubs from September 1st. South Korea reopened nightclubs back in May, but this led to a spike in Covid-19 cases resulting in indefinite closure of all bars and clubs. New Zealand had been doing well, maintaining zero Covid-19 for a hundred days, but a recent outbreak led to another set of Level Three restrictions in Auckland, which has just recently ended. There appears to be no signs of clubs reopening there for a while yet.
Better Ways To Socialise?
So, what will these restrictions entail for sociability? And, can we find a better way to socialise?
One novel approach that could bring about a change in the way we socialise would be to revive The Muse Conversations proposed by Theodore Zeldin. Zeldin is a renowned Oxford University philosopher, historian, and author. He has been a pioneer in revealing how relationships, and emotions such as love, fear, loneliness, friendship, and ambition have evolved in different civilisations over the centuries.
The Muse Conversations brings together total strangers in pairs, for a conversation that transcends small talk. Both are given a Menu of Conversation with specific questions that guide and structure their discussion. These questions enable the pair to reflect on the details of their lives, speculate on their personal experiences, and gain a deeper understanding of one another. The idea is that this encounter will change their world for a short period of time.
Perhaps this idea of a new way of relating to one another could take place in short periods of time in a controlled environment. Indeed libraries have reopened along with the likes of community halls where this would certainly be a viable option. Another alternative could be to have The Muse Conversations in an app, in the style of dating apps. Socialising in person is still the best way to make connections as non-verbal communication such as body language and inflections or tone of voice remain important to forming lasting bonds.
Marking indicating social distancing in a cafe in Dublin. August 2020
Getting Around the Regulations
For the moment it seems that we will have to continue to reserve tables in bars and restaurants. One option is to make a second reservation to extend a social gathering, as ninety minutes is really insufficient to catch up properly with people. If others don’t live close by the chosen destination then it often just isn’t worth it, given the cost of travel and the mandatory nine euro surcharge for food, on top of the money that will be spent on drinks. This will probably lead to more indoor gatherings at houses where the social norm is to provide guests with snacks and some drinks. It’s also a lot cheaper for guests to bring their own beverage and there’s less of a time limit.
For coffee shops, it’s possible to take away beverages which doesn’t change that aspect at all. The chance to sit and work on a laptop at a café appears to still be part of the new normal, as long as they are following the same rules as restaurants.
For clubs, it remains to be seen what will happen when they officially reopen. It’s difficult to see how social distancing will work on dance floors, along with ordering drinks. If clubs increase the size of their smoking areas, it may be possible to achieve the required ventilation. And unless there’s the possibility of a club having an app to order drinks that allows distancing from patrons, it would be difficult to remove entirely the chance of contracting Covid.
The only way we can socialise with a degree of normalcy is to have more open-air events. This may have to come with a limit on numbers or even a ban on alcohol consumption. But this could work if bookings for private seating arrangements were possible as with the outdoor concert in Newcastle. Ireland should certainly look at what has been happening in the UK, and elsewhere, for inspiration of what can work for future events.
The pandemic will certainly bring huge changes to social life around the globe that will hopefully not last as long as people expect. All we can do is wait and see what happens. For now, we have to accept the new abnormal.
Gasping for a hit, Carl made himself a fresh cup of coffee. But big-nosed and bat-eared, when he tried to slam it, the steaming brown liquid dribbled down his chin to piddle over his pink tie and white shirt. His accountant’s uniform.
‘Fuck!’ He’d forgotten the stitch-up already. His lips weren’t even that sore. His doctor had done a fine job. No gaps. Nothing could get into his mouth now. Not the normal way. Ingenious. Time was at a premium, that is if he didn’t want to be scalded. So with a tea towel, Carl did his best to sop up all the coffee off his face and clothes. Behind him, the door swung open. And from where, with a crash, the handle had hit the wall, some flaking paint fell to the floor. Looking down, before she stepped over it, in came his wife.
‘We have to get that door fixed.’
She saw it. The gold thread razzle-dazzling his mouth. Extra strength.
‘So after I specifically told you not to, you went and got your mouth stitched up, didn’t you? Isn’t that right? You disgust me Carl.’
Taking off his coffee-stained jacket and tie, he looked directly at Nicola, who mimicked a quite convincing fit of dry retching, and then said,
‘You’ll be sick now and have to swallow your own vomit. You’ve gone and done it, haven’t you? You’ve only gone and done it.’
‘Yes. I have gone and done it. I’m not getting the sack. No way.’
At which, she jumped back from him.
‘What the hell sort of a sound was that?’
‘It’s my new voice. Rather thought you’d like it, Nicola. You were always a Columbo fan, weren’t you? Still are, far as I know. It’s the voice of Peter Falk, isn’t it?’
‘Trying to be funny Carl? Because I’ve a left foot here that’ll soon sort that out, when swiftly raised to your anatomy’s pendant parts.’ She said this, moving in towards him.
‘Hold on. See this pimple on my chin? Right in the middle? Come closer for a look, because it’s been fitted quite snugly.’
‘Yeah, I can see it alright. Wasn’t there this morning, when you left for the office.’
‘I know it wasn’t. Because it’s not a pimple. It’s the Chin-Box 3.2. Now that they’ve stitched my lips together, henceforward I’ll talk out of it. Oh, and I can tune it to any voice in the world.’
Akimbo, Nicola stared into his talking Chin-Box 3.2, as she picked up his coffee cup. The hankie he handed her was for the dregs that dribbled down her chin, as in one gulp, she drained what was left.
‘You mean to say, out of all the voices in the entire world, you picked Peter fucking Falk from Columbo? Is that what you’re telling me through your Chin-Box 3.2, Carl? Well, is it?’
To this, Carl said nothing, now unbuttoning his white shirt. He took it off, and Nicola watched his hairy chest throw the shirt, along with the pink tie, into the washing machine. His hairy spine then walked past her to the far side of their small apartment. Where, from the bedroom wardrobe, he took out a fresh white t-shirt which, in small print on the front read, ‘With Millions of Invisible Advertisements.’
Returning to the kitchen, he answered, ‘Yes, Nicola. It is. That’s what I’m telling you. Through my Chin-Box 3.2. And as I said, I won’t be getting sacked any time soon. Now, the next time I sneeze, there’s no danger that my nose will fall off of my face. We’re ok for rent. Well, for the next while, at least. And for the foreseeable future, I’ll be talking out of my Chin-Box 3.2, so get used to it.’
‘Was that the actor, Leonardo Di Caprio just then?’
‘No. It was a mixture of 50% Donald Duck and 50% Bono. I think. I’m only getting used to the controls. Messing around a bit.’
‘Who knew that combination would sound like Leo Di Caprio. I must have a look at how you did that. But you’re trying to play on my love of hip-hop. You’ll not get around me that easily. Did I not say to you, “Don’t get your mouth stitched up, Carl?” That it’s unproven in the fight against the Gordian Worm Virus? Didn’t I?’
‘Yes, you did. And your bat-eared boy didn’t listen. Because you’re wrong.’
Stomping over to the other side of the kitchen table, Nicola fished around in her handbag for a small box which, in front of Carl’s big nose, she placed on the table.
‘Is that what I think it is, Nicola?’
She pulled up a chair to sit at the table, and crossing her arms, looked him straight in the eye.
‘It is, Carl. In my view, the Eat-Babies theory is correct. The Stitch-Your-Lips-Up theory is pure gastroenteritis. Inconsistent and dribbly, indeed. This here is a small box of baby G worms that I’ll eat, and in so doing, become immune to their poison. It’s like that old Turkish delight of a king, Mithridates of Pontus taking small amounts of poison. So many people wanted to kill him, but he developed an immunity. Quite ingenious really. Millions of years BC this was. And people were quite thick back then, relatively speaking. So that’s what I’m going to do, Carl.’
‘Won’t they just lay eggs in your body? And therefore those eggs will travel to your brain, hatch and lay more eggs. Hatch, and eventually, when you sneeze, your nose falls off. They’ll burst out of your head, leaving you completely sacked, forthwith.’
‘No Carl. They’re dead baby worms. Dead.’
‘Oh well. Dead babies. That makes it all right doesn’t it? Do you have any sort of conscience?’
‘No. They’re worms, Carl. Just worms. I can’t afford a conscience and by the way, neither can you. If it were otherwise, we’d all be sacked. Now, it’s your turn to get used to it. So please do. I’m eating worms. Dead baby G worms. And I’m making sure to chew each one at least twenty times before swallowing, as the very nice chap in the shop told me to do.’
Around the wooden kitchen table, the two of them sat in silence, staring at the box before them. Inside the box, dead baby worms were floating in some kind of fluid.
‘You know Kevin, from downstairs on the second floor?
Of course I do. You know I do, Carl. Nice man. He works for the Post Office or whatever it’s called now.’
‘Not any more, he doesn’t. His nose fell off last week. Got sacked before his two nostrils hit the ground. Seems they’re evicting him from the building tomorrow. If it hasn’t happened already. In the middle of the night. With baseball bats.’
Nicola pushed back from the table. Her chair scraped noisily across the wooden floor.
‘What sort of a voice was that?’
Carl was fiddling about furiously with the Chin-Box 3.2 controller on his phone.
‘70% Margaret Thatcher and 30% Ronald Reagan, I think. Might’ve been a bit of George Dubya in there as well. Thinking of using that as my new work voice. What do you think? It’d be great for any promotions coming up.’
‘I think if you’re talking like that, getting your lips sewn together with golden thread has done far worse things to your mind than ever having Gordian worms running wild about it. Like, how will you sleep in your condition?’
I’ll sleep fine, Nicola. Don’t worry about that.’
‘No you won’t. I sleep beside you every night, and I know. You haven’t thought this through. Budgeting being your forte, you’re supposed to be an accountant for god’s sake. Even before you got your lips sewn together, every second night, religiously, at 3 am, you saw giant insects coming in through the bedroom windows. With less air getting in to your bunged-up mind, God only knows what you’ll see. With less and less circulating your head, by the end of the month, I’ll be married to a person whose brain is the size of an amoeba. Can’t believe those adverts finally convinced you to stitch yourself up. This isn’t on, Carl. You’re a fucker, and you know it. How will you eat?’
Standing, he went to his light blue holdall. The one with the two gold stripes, which now matched the thread in his lips. His hands rummaged inside for a considerable length of time until, onto the kitchen table, he slapped something long and snakelike.
‘Via my Cheek-Tube, Nicola. That’s how I’m going to eat. Through my Cheek-Tube 400.’
Backing away from him, she nearly collided with the door, shaking her head from side to side to side to side and foaming at the mouth.
‘So from now on, you’re gonna eat through a tube?’
‘Yes.’
‘A tube? Really?’
‘Yes. It’s the Cheek-Tube 400. Top of the range. I just insert one end of the tube into my cheek like so, where they’ve cut a small tube-hole insertion point, if you can see it, and then put the other end of the tube into my food, and press this button on the side, and hey presto Nicola, HEY PRESTO!’
Selecting a breakfast bowl with rainbow butterflies on the outside, into it he put three Weetabix. And after an unstinting splash of cold milk, he pushed the appropriate end of the tube into the bowl. With no noise or effort whatsoever, up his Cheek-Tube 400, the Weetabix disappeared, travelling in a more mashed and condensed form, to the inside of his mouth. Then through theatrical ums, and ahs, while he was chewing, gulping, swallowing, and speaking in different voices, he said through his Chin-Box 3.2, ‘Watch this!’
‘I can chew, swallow and talk all at the same time. Look Ma! No hands! From now on, at work, my productivity will sky rocket. It’s a win-win for everybody. I won’t be able to sneeze anymore, because my lips are stitched together, Nicola. The World Health Organisation has stated quite categorically that before anyone sneezes they open their mouth and then a-tish-hoo a-tish-hoo a-tish-hoo. If you can’t open your mouth then no a-tish-hoo a-tish-hoo a-tish-hoo can happen, and therefore no sneezing ever again. This means my nose won’t fall off. If, at any point, I’m infected with the G Worm virus, and forced by my boss, into a Pass-the-Hankie scenario, I’ll be able to blow at my own pace. Nice and slow. Or fast and furious! But my nose won’t fall off my face, because I can’t open my mouth. I’m back in complete control again! Cool Carl, your bat-earred boy wonder. Nicola, even if I do manage to catch the virus my nose won’t fall off. I won’t be sacked. Don’t you get it?’
‘I get it. It won’t work. But I do get it. The WHO are wrong. You will sneeze again. But if you believe in all that gastroenteritis hokey-cokey, well then that’s fair enough. I’m not arguing with you any more, Carl. Life’s too short. I’m tired. It’s a bollocks theory but go ahead, it’s your own life to live out how you please. I’m only your wife. Sure why would you even consult me? Eh? Why? I’m only a poor little know-nothing solicitor.’
‘Nicola, Eileen McCruddy’s nose fell off this morning. And so too did her husband’s. Do you know Sarah Mince?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, her nose fell off as well. Do you know Tom Tiddle?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well his nose fell off three times this year already. He’s lost three jobs as a result. In the current recrudescence of the virus, it’s getting more and more expensive to get someone to sew it back on again. Do you know Marty Smarty?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, his nose fell off as well. Yesterday.’
‘If this goes on much longer, we’ll have no neighbours or friends left. I’m scared, Carl. Everything is shit. So very shit. Fuck it. I’m doing it now. I have to go to work on Monday. I’m eating dead worms right this minute.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘No, I’m not sure about anything anymore, but I’m doing it anyway. I can’t get my mouth stitched up. I’d suffocate, I would. I’m not built like you. I’ve no other choice.’
They sat back down, around the table.
‘Nicola, have you talked to Susan lately?’
‘Yes. We talk every day on the phone. Practically every three or four hours, these last few weeks, since I marooned myself temporarily into our apartment.’
‘I’m sorry, but I have to tell you. Her nose fell off at the weekend. She lost her job on Monday, and she’s being evicted tomorrow morning.’
‘What? Carl, she has to come and stay here with us. Most law firms don’t accept no-nosers, even for their first offence. Why didn’t she tell me herself? I was only talking to her earlier this morning on the phone.’
‘She was afraid how you’d take it, in your current dread fear of contracting the virus hyper-hysteria. Nicola, are you sure you’re okay with letting her stay here?’
‘Of fucking course I am. You’re disgraceful if you think I’d have a problem with letting one of my best friends move in with us for a while. We were at law school together. Disgraceful. Do you have a problem with it? Do you, Carl? You fucker!’
‘No, of course I don’t. In fact, I’ve already arranged everything with Susan. She’s all packed and down in the foyer of our building. Just waiting for the okay to come up. Knew I had to check with you first. We’re living in a mad world at the moment. Nothing is certain.’
Nicola rushed over to Carl and threw her arms around his shoulders. She started to cry.
‘I should’ve known you wouldn’t let me down. I love you, Carl. Thank you. Though she should have confided in me first. It’s dreadful she didn’t. Unbelievable really.’
Putting her lips on his, she kissed him hard. Or tried to. Forgetting his lips were stitched up.
‘However golden and shiny the thread, kissing stitched-up lips is absolutely dehumanising. Carl, this has no feeling or warmth whatsoever. How will we survive as a couple without the comfort of kissing?’
Plunging his left hand down his trouser pocket, he took out an apparatus.
‘These are my Loving Lips 4,000. They were included with my Stitch-Up bundle at the doctor’s. Seems I just attach them over my stitched-up lips and hey, presto! Kiss me and find out how good they are, Nicola. Come on. Kiss me! Kiss me! Kiss me! It has a robot tongue with AI. 4,000 wurps per second.’
‘You just made that up, didn’t you?’
‘Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know what the 4,000 stands for. Unfortunately, wurps don’t exist yet.’
Tears streamed down her face, and with the hankie, dabbing at her eyes, she moved towards him. When he too, moved towards her, she closed her eyes and again they kissed. But this time, Kerboom! Bang Boom! Boom! Boom! Like Sidney Opera House fireworks. On New Year’s Eve.
‘These don’t feel, in any way, like your old lips. Nice though. I’ll give you that, Carl. Nice indeed. Wurps, eh?’
They kissed again.
‘Can you kiss and talk at the same time?’
‘Of course.’
‘Do George Clooney.’
‘A bit old for you, isn’t he?’ said Carl, in a Donald Duck / Ricky Gervais melange.
‘Just do it, Carl. Do George Clooney. And stop trying to put me off my food with Ricky fucking Gervais.’
‘I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that. I’d feel a bit violated to be honest, Nicola.’
‘And mix it with Fred from the corner grocery store.’
‘He’s a bit young for you, Nicola. I’m shocked. Where has all this come from?’
‘Just do it Carl. Without telling me, you got your mouth stitched up. It’s gonna be for at least a year. You owe me big time. Just bloody do it!’
‘Ok. Ok. Ok.’
The banging on their apartment door was Susan. Unable to contain herself any longer, she turned the knob and walked into their living space. The nose she’d already had sewn back on, was running quite badly. By the look of it, probably a backstreet job. She was sweating too. Shaking Carl’s hand, she said, ‘Thanks Carl and Nicola. Thanks so very much for letting me stay with you for a while. I owe you one. Will pay you back when I get another job. Promise.’ And with this, she sneezed. Twice. Into his face. By accident. At least her nose didn’t fall off. Even so, she looked mortified. Depending on how many times you’d already had it re-sewn beforehand, most nose-jobs lasted 7-8 weeks. But with these backstreet jobs, who knew?
To reassure her, Carl put his right hand into the air to give her the thumbs-up. And in the Chin-Box 3.2 Tarantino voice, he said, ‘You see Nicola, I’ve still got my nose. As I speak, my stitch-up is already paying dividends. Just like the YouTube adverts said it would.’
Running to the kitchen table, Nicola ripped open her box of worms, and forthwith, put two dead babies into her mouth. As directed by the very nice chap in the shop, she chewed twenty times, and then swallowing hard, re-joined the others.
Jacques Cousteau, the inventor of the aqua-lung which finally allowed human beings to roam freely under water once said: ‘The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.’
Like many other kids growing up in Dublin, I first learned to swim in the two-hundred-year old man-made harbour of Sandycove. Gifted a birthday present of a rubber diving mask by an adventurous uncle I was immediately mesmerised by an incredible world that didn’t follow the predictable conventions of dry land, with shimmering shoals of white bait and sand eels darting among the stunningly beautiful kelp forests that surround Sandycove.
Like Jacques Cousteau, the sea had caught me in its net and my early love of underwater Dublin Bay led me to become first a snorkeler and then a scuba diver. I qualified as a scuba-diving instructor in 1998, and since then I have been working with the fantastic team in Oceandivers, who have had the pleasure of introducing thousands of divers to the incredible underwater world on our doorstep in Dublin Bay.
Hook Head Wexford.
Underwater Photography
I took up underwater photography soon after becoming a dive instructor. Since then I have been bringing a camera along with me on dives as much as possible. I began shooting on 35mm film with an amphibious camera, and have kept up as much as possible with the fast moving technology over the past twenty years.
Bringing electrical equipment into salt water is never a smart idea, let alone cameras that cost thousands of euros! I have had more than a few teary endings to dives as water snuck past a vital rubber barrier.
Saint John’s Point Donegal.
I have spent hundreds of hours photographing some of the country’s most dramatic landscapes, hidden away from most of the population, and am constantly on the look out for new audiences for the beautiful underwater scenes I am lucky enough to capture.
Being underwater is not something our body can endure for long without the assistance of technology, primarily the aqualung that Cousteau invented in the 1940’s, which heralded the arrival of the underwater sport of scuba diving. With over ten thousand certified scuba divers now in Ireland, we have a substantial number of active amateurs and professionals diving regularly all year round, all along our incredible 5,500 km of coastline.
Divers on Dublin Bay.
These divers are rewarded for braving our cooler waters with incredible scenes of raw nature, and dramatic underwater scenery that rivals any of the best dive locations in the world.
Cousteau himself rated some of the sites he dived in Ireland as being among the best in the world. The west coast in particular offers a multitude of islands and sea cliffs in deep clear Atlantic water, interspersed with the wrecks of unfortunate vessels that ran aground in the oft wild conditions. To explore every dive site on the west coast would take a lifetime, with new sites being discovered every season by intrepid divers.
Horn Head Donegal.
Dublin Bay
Due to the density of population in our capital city, Dublin Bay is one of the most well-dived locations in the country, despite at times having less than ideal diving conditions.
Divers trade in ‘Viz’ or underwater visibility. As a rule, the clearer the water the better the dive. Divers depart from Dun Laoghaire Harbour to the south and Howth harbour in the north, finding adventures around Dalkey Island or Lambay Island; or surveying shipwrecks off the Old Bailey Lighthouse or on the Kish sandbank.
The silt and sandy bottom around Dublin Bay is in a state of constant motion, drawn by the strong tidal flows moving down the east coast of the country. These massive sand banks are also easily disturbed by strong southerly or easterly winds, leading to dramatic drops in visibility when a strong wind blows. Unlike the deep water off the west coast, Dublin Bay is a relatively shallow body of water with a primarily sandy bottom.
Coral Garden Dalkey Island, Dublin Bay.
The sediment and sand along the northern half of the Bay is particularly plentiful, meaning the dive sites there are extremely poor, with visibility rarely rising above a metre or two. But on the southern side of the Bay there are sites where visibility regularly reaches beyond five metres, providing reasonable conditions for divers to train in.
Hook Head, Wexford
Sandycove is among the few locations in the Bay where divers can regularly access clear water with the depths required to train new divers in safe conditions.
Recently, under the guise of Covid-19 prevention measures, divers were denied vehicular access to the site as a result of a poorly designed bike track. This removes one of the last accessible dive sites within the city, and hopefully a solution can be found.
Dalkey Island, Dublin Bay.
Dalkey Island
The rocky outpost of Dalkey Island, jutting proudly out of the sandy sea bed, offers the best of the boat dive sites in Dublin Bay, with an incredible ecosystem flourishing just a stone’s throw from the capital.
Watched over by a thriving seal colony along the surrounding coastline, Dalkey Island offers a thriving marine environment, which is fed by rushing tidal flows as the waters empty from Dublin Bay and are funnelled through the two sounds between the island and the mainland.
This incredible wilderness is close to the heart of the city, but alas so few take the opportunity to visit it either above water or below. Yet DART services run every few minutes from the centre of the city out to Dalkey (a less than 30 minute ride), from where a ferry leaves for the unspoilt Island.
The Bills Rocks off Galway.
Dead Zones
As indicated, a few natural factors deny Dublin Bay the crystal clear water that divers can find along most of the west coast. This sand and silt in Dublin Bay is easily stirred up by wind so visibility can drop from ten meters to under a meter in the space of a few hours. Moreover, as you move along the coast from the north to south numerous large rivers carry silt into the low depths of the Irish Sea, with the same process occurring along the Welsh coastline; the distance between Dublin and the island of Anglesey, where the port of Holyhead is located is barely a hundred kilometres.
Killary Fjord, Galway.
Looking to the future for Dublin Bay, the biggest concern is that what has happened in the Baltic Sea will be replicated on the Irish Sea, including Dublin Bay.
Dead zones form when an excessive level of nutrients, primarily nitrogen and phosphorus, enter coastal waters and fertilize algal blooms. When these algae die and float to the bottom, they provide a rich energy source for bacteria, which in the act of decomposition absorb oxygen from surrounding waters.
The Irish Sea has already numerous dead zones recorded around river estuaries, especially from the large rivers in the south east. The worry now is that these will expand and overwhelm more of the Irish Sea’s thriving wildlife.
Over the last forty years the Baltic Sea has transitioned into a near holistic dead zone, as divers watched on in horror, and the relevant authorities in different countries failed to act.
Killary Fjord, Galway.
A similar fate is not inconceivable for the Irish Sea, if sufficient care is not taken of this precious resource. Although we have the advantage over the Baltic Sea of an opening onto the wild Atlantic on either end – allowing a flushing effect from the tide – what we do above ground will ultimately makes its way into the Irish Sea
Decisions made by our farming, construction and logging industries, along with our waste water handling, will decide whether we preserve this unique ecosystem – the last remaining great stretch of wilderness on our doorstep.
Conservation will also requires the same level of commitment from our near neighbour across the water, as we share a guardianship of this body of water, and the decisions we make in Ireland will be insufficient.
All Photographs are taken by Daniel Mc Auley from Dublin Bay, Donegal and Co Clare.
As Lebanon marked the centenary of its creation last week, it was not state-orchestrated ceremonies or mass demonstrations that marked the occasion, but rather the media circus surrounding the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron.
Macron’s visit came with Lebanon mired in an unprecedented crisis that has plunged to new depths following last month’s devastating explosion at Beirut’s port, caused by 2,750 tons of the chemical compound ammonium nitrate.
The impact of the explosion is hard to understate. Its sound and force stretched for miles, releasing a huge mushroom cloud that killed close to two hundred people, and scarred thousands both physically and mentally; destroyed countless homes, and leaving once vibrant streets desolate. The immediate aftermath was dystopian: “It was like a movie. People moving slowly, covered in blood, glass shattered everywhere. Leaving a whole city riddled with PTSD,” recalled one witness.
To many the sheer negligence of allowing such a dangerous chemical to sit in a warehouse for six years demonstrated the extent of state authorities’ incompetence. In contrast, Lebanese civil society rose to the challenge, with community clean-up teams, armed with sweeping brushes and hard-hats, appearing across the city following the blast.
Volunteer groups walk through a damaged street in the Gemmayzeh area two days following the Aug. 4 explosion. (Luke FitzHerbert)
The explosion also shined light on the state’s glaring absence from such efforts. State authorities, led by the army, were derided for their perceived failure to provide leadership in the aftermath of such devastation. “State, what state?” many were asking.
Indeed, the army only tended to draw attention to themselves by obstructing non-state efforts; such as holding up a Dutch rescue mission’s access to the port for hours. Moreover, a published army circular demanded non-existent documentation from volunteer groups working on the ground, prompting objections from UN officials.
People have been complaining bitterly about soldiers idly standing by, while private citizens roll up their sleeves, and the erection of seemingly pointless checkpoints that only interfered with volunteers trying to move between damaged areas.
Political leaders have also been vilified, verbally abused or even assaulted. When the former education minister tried to join cleanup efforts, he was chased away by angry residents. Another minister was harangued by a large crowd throwing water at her. A third had his convoy attacked.
Speaking ahead of protests on the Saturday, four days after the explosion, one activist told me he anticipated violence, as “the reaction to terror and murder. We were bombed by our own government.” In downtown Beirut, protesters’ rhetoric against political leaders took on a darker tone, with banners reading “The verdict has been issued. You are all murderers. Hang the nooses,” in the main square.
Nooses are seen in Beirut’s Martyr’s Square, as protesters gather demanding leaders be held accountable following the Aug.4 explosion, 8th August, 2020. (Luke FitzHerbert)
Perhaps in normal times, it would be an overreaction to denounce one’s leaders as murderers. But Lebanon is not going through normal times. The anger on the street generated by the explosion was layered with the raw emotional trauma the affair has induced, and also showed the pent-up rage that has built up against the governing elite.
On Saturday August 8th, central Beirut descended into chaos, with running street battles developing between protesters and security forces. By mid- afternoon, a large area of central Beirut had become clouded in tear-gas, as rubber bullets flew through the air, and buildings caught fire; with protesters storming and ransacking state-affiliated buildings, while a number of government ministries were occupied, and hundreds of people were injured over the course of the day.
But despite these highly anticipated protests, public demonstrations have failed to replicate the mass movement of last October, where huge and largely peaceful crowds managed to topple the then government. Instead of attracting huge numbers as happened then, recent gatherings have tended to quickly disintegrate into general mayhem.
Almost a year on from the thawra (revolution) last October, civil unrest no longer generates the same energetic response. Tear gas and confrontation with police are now predictable outcomes, and almost mundane occurrences. “I’m so over this,” said my colleague, as we sat watching protests from the office.
Protesters in Martyr’s Square as tear gas rises in the distance from running battles with security forces, Aug. 8, 2020 (Luke FitzHerbert)
Even the resignation of the government, announced live on TV while protesters occupied government buildings didn’t seem like a victory. “It means nothing. He was just a puppet,” said one demonstrator moments after the announcement. Instead of being seen as a step forward in the direction of acquiescing to popular demands, the government’s resignation only showed that real control belongs to the sectarian power-brokers, in whose string-pulling hands lie the power to appoint a new government of their choosing.
Having reached this impasse, Lebanon’s thawra activists do not know which way to turn, having been unable to overturn the sectarian power-sharing system that the previous government was merely the public face of. As one activist put it: “we are locked in a dark room and can’t find the key to get out.”
Instead it is Emmanuel Macron who has set the agenda. He visited Beirut two days after the explosion, lapping up the despairing crowd’s demands for change and promising a new political pact for Lebanon. Since that visit, he has returned a second time, organized an international emergency aid conference for Lebanon, with another set for next month, and has promised a third visit in December.
Anticipation of these dates reflect how Lebanon’s political trajectory is now being set by foreign powers, and not through an internal struggle between reformists and representatives of the status quo. “They have seized the debate,” explained a Lebanese academic of the international response, “as being for or against the Macron plan.”
That plan is very similar to previous ones: requiring the state to undertake robust structural reforms against corruption and mismanagement that will release the promised billions of dollars in international assistance.
Lebanon’s sectarian power brokers have already put in place a new Prime Minister, Mustapha Adib, a little-known former ambassador to Germany. At a dinner hosted by Macron at France’s stately embassy in Beirut last week, the power brokers promised there a government would be formed in two weeks. Macron left, saying this was Lebanon’s last chance. The next six weeks are thus critical.
But despite Macron’s public expressions of compassion and solidarity with Lebanon, there are many disinclined to swallow it. When French jets flew over Beirut last week, spraying the sky with the colours of the national flag, many rejected the gesture, instead remarking on how unwelcome the sound of roaring jets was to a traumatised city.
Nor are Macron’s efforts solely motivated by France’s long-held ties to Lebanon. Macron is engaged in a battle for influence against Turkey in the East Mediterranean, linked to energy exploration. The power play stretches from Libya to Greece and Cyprus, with Lebanon the latest territory to get involved. Turkey’s soft power in Lebanon is quietly growing, with Turkish President Raycip Tayyep Erdogan’s Sunni Islam credentials holding appeal in the country’s north.
With the prospect looming of an IMF deal opening Lebanon up to more foreign investment and the expansionist tendencies of regional powers Turkey and Iran, Macron’s manoeuvres can be interpreted as pre-emptive step to prevent other powers from exploiting Lebanon’s difficulties.
While foreign states eye the spoils, many ordinary Lebanese have given up on their country progressing altogether. The explosion has accelerated a brain-drain that was already well under way. The country’s economic collapse and political paralysis point to a grim future, holding no appeal to Lebanon’s dynamic and ambitious youth.
A Beirut research group, Information International claims there has been a 36% increase in the daily number of people departing the country since the explosion. As one local who plans to leave put it: “It’s time to leave and not look back. I used to be filled with romantic thoughts about Beirut whenever I considered leaving. But these died with the explosion.”
It will take Beirut at least a year to recover from the explosion. In the meantime it remains to be seen whether French-led efforts will have any success in forcing the regime to change its ways. Previous efforts have ended in failure, with Lebanon’s leaders building a reputation for grand declarations leading to nothing new.
Political leaders now openly talk about changing the system; about creating a truly civil society and ending corruption. But while the rhetoric reflects local and international demands, the old guard shows no sign of departing the stage. This is despite unprecedented calls by many – who consider them a collection of thieves, criminals, former warlords, liars, gangsters, or murderers – to stand aside at last. Hatred of the power brokers has reached endemic proportions, but the means of removing them is not obvious.
All photography by Luke FitzHerbert for Cassandra Voices.
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In an impassioned speech at the ghostly Convention Centre currently housing Dáil Éireann, Michael McNamara TD denounced as ‘draconian’ the Criminal Justice (Enforcement Powers) (Covid-19) Bill 2020. This will permit Gardaí to inspect premises and close them down temporarily where a breach in compliance has been observed.
The Clare representative chairs the Dáil’s Special Committee on Covid-19 Response, where he has grilled, among others, the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, and the acting Chief Medical Office Ronan Glynn; he also brought in expert advice including Professor Carl Heneghan, Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University, on the contentious issue of masks.
Looking beyond the Bill itself, McNamara pointed to the wider ramifications of suppression policies on Irish society – in particular to their effect on communities in rural Ireland:
My question would be: how is the pandemic different in Ireland to every other country? It’s only different insofar as we have been more draconian in our restrictions and frankly those restrictions have failed, because at the end of it all our detection figures are the same as they are in Sweden. Now I am not saying that Sweden was the perfect model, but I am pointing out that there were no closures of bars in Sweden, there was no lockdown in Sweden; there are no closures of bars in fact in any other country in Europe; but we have had these really draconian measures and they have manifestly failed, or else the figures being provided by NPHET on a daily basis are incorrect and I don’t for a moment believe that the figures being provided by NPHET on a daily basis are incorrect. I believe that they are correct and I believe that our figures are higher than in other countries because the strategy we have pursued is failing, has failed and is failing, and I don’t say that with any joy. It’s quite sad given the sacrifices people have made in good faith. They cancelled foreign holidays. They were told that foreign holidays are the great evil, must be avoided, yet countries where they didn’t do that are not having the same infection figures are we are.
So we have these really draconian restrictions which have served no apparent purpose, because our transmission figures are higher than in other European countries. Of course we have failed to deal with the real clusters in Direct Provision Centres – I understand there was a discussion of that in NPHET but it was advised by senior figures in NPHET that you can’t raise that because it would be politically sensitive – so we won’t look at the Direct Provision Centres. We won’t look at the meat plants because they keep the show rolling here. God knows what they finance, but they clearly finance something, otherwise they wouldn’t have been left do their own thing when bars were being hammered.
So we are all agreed. Even the bars seemed to have bought into this policy of the beatings will continue until morale improves, which is effectively what this piece of legislation is about. We’ll introduce more and more draconian legislation. Make it harder and harder and harder.
The Gards. The AGSI have expressed reservations about it. Ordinary rank and file Gardai across the state don’t want it. They have said it is going to bring An Garda Siochana into disrepute. They have a job to do and it is not to focus exclusively on bars as the government want them to do, because we have to scapegoat somebody for the failure of government policy. So we’re going to bring it in, but we are going to have provision where it’ll be rolled over.
Does anybody in this house really believe that it won’t be rolled over after November? Do they? Minister do you believe in reply to this that this won’t be rolled over, that you won’t be putting down an amendment in a few weeks time to roll it over? Because I know it is going to be rolled over, because that is the nature of giving over powers to organisations. It’s the nature of bringing in draconian legislation with sunset clauses that aren’t really sunset clauses. They stay on the books forever.
We had a long debate it wasn’t in this house, it was in a different house, I did say I think before this house rose that it sets a terrible example that we are all sitting here 1-2-3, oh about twenty of us, at what cost? And we are asking teachers to go back into schools – and thankfully they are going back, and it’s a huge credit to this government – and in particular to teachers, boards of management and parents across the country that we have got our schools open again, but this is not an example to set to anybody. So that’s why I don’t think we should say we are going to roll over this legislation because it is unnecessary. The only possible basis for it is: if we can only swallow this one more piece of medicine we’ll open the bars.
This isn’t about bars – or to me this isn’t just about bars – it’s about society; it’s about rural Ireland, which is dying on its feet. You know young people can’t meet anywhere. They can’t meet in bars, they can’t meet in nightclubs, they can’t meet in weddings. They can’t even go to matches. So where will they meet? Well of course they will meet where we don’t think they should meet because they are social animals.
We are all social animals. We need to meet. We need a sense of community. And as a colleague who I recently spoke to – who is from Kerry as it happens – he said you know – he lives in Dublin – “God I really hadn’t realised, I went down to Kerry for the first time because of Covid etc, I went down to Kerry for the first time in months and month and I just couldn’t believe the sense of isolation, desolation and desperation that is there.”
Disgusted for all law abiding publicans to see scenes like this in Killarney last night. Especially while the majority of pubs are still shut down. Close down the business that sold them the takeaway pints immediately and enforce the new Garda laws. @VFIpubspic.twitter.com/uhfRG8HY8y
Because we are destroying communities: we are destroying a sense of community; we are destroying a sense of society, and with that we are doing untold damage to people’s health; to people’s mental health; to people’s sense of wellbeing; to people’s sense of optimism. And it has to end. It has to come to an end at some point. And the logical point for it to come to an end is when the powers given to the Minister for Health in the Emergency legislation which I voted for, don’t regret voting for – I think it has been slightly abused mind you – I expected it might be slightly abused, I wasn’t, unfortunately, disappointed in that regard. But I know that the Minister for Health is going to put down a motion carrying on these powers because that is what government departments do: they never relinquish power, and I know the Minister for Justice is going to seek to roll over this legislation and I don’t believe that we can continue to roll over draconian legislation which is having.
I am not a Covid denier, it is a very serious virus, it has killed people in this country, it will kill more people in this country, everybody needs to be careful, they need to be cautious but at some point we as legislators in this House will have to trust people and say to them: be responsible, for God’s sake look after yourself; look after your family members; look after those with whom you come in contact with, but we can’t continue to do that through coercive criminal legislation. Not without destroying society. Not without destroying individuals. It cannot continue indefinitely.
So on that basis, I urge the Minister to put a proper sunset clause in place. A date after which these powers will not continue, especially given that any closure order made cannot be challenged. And Minister you said … you fudged it about how you challenge if a pub is closed for a day. And I said earlier this is a lot more than about pubs, but it is also about pubs.
How do you challenge? You challenge it by way of judicial review. Are you seriously telling me that the 6,000 or so publicans that are shut down, that are on their knees, that are now having their payment reduced, some of them, that they are going to take a judicial review, that they are going to hire a solicitor and a junior council and a senior council and go to the High Court and pay the tens of thousands of euros necessary to challenge their closure for a day?
Of course they are not. But then that closure for a day is going to be used against them when they go to seek to renew their licence. So these are draconian powers. These powers are having an effect on people, and they have to come to an end at some point.
