Goodbye for now

Not for the first time in the past year, we have an updated Living with Covid roadmap. By the end of June, up to 82 per cent of adults who can be vaccinated will have received at least one dose while been 55 and 60 per cent will be fully vaccinated.

Furthermore, an additional €10m in funding is being made available to meet the increase for mental health services, which is hugely welcome news given the anxieties experienced by every person over the last year.

The plan was announced by Taoiseach Micheál Martin on Tuesday evening when he said: “I know that people are physically and emotionally exhausted by this pandemic. It has placed enormous pressure on each of us individually and as a society.”

In the Cork Independent, we have been working from home since 16 March 2020. I remember remarking to a colleague at the time that I expected to be returning by May 2020 at the latest…little did I know!

In hindsight, it was definitely a good thing that no one knew we’d still be here a year later.

I’m not sure how anyone would have coped if we had known what we were facing in to.

It’s been a hard slog so far, firstly for those who have lost family and friends to Covid, and for those in jobs or business owners who have been forced to close during restrictions, and also for those who are just fed up with the whole thing.

Thankfully in Cork, we’re doing very well in keeping numbers down.

On Tuesday we were second from the bottom for our 14-day incidence rate, only Kerry is doing better than us, which is very welcome news.

And so, to my own bit of news this week as this issue marks my last with the Cork Independent.

I started with the paper on a six-month internship in July 2011 and now it’s time for a new chapter.

I have countless happy memories at the Cork Indo, with brilliant colleagues and wonderful friends made along the way.

My very first article in 2011 was about choosing the right cut of meat for a butcher’s block feature we were running that week.

The day after we went to print, I received a genuinely lovely email from a butcher who explained that whatever it was that I wrote (I dread to think), was the exact opposite on what to do in choosing the right cut of meat. That was lesson number one for a very inexperienced journalist, use credible sources, not Google!

There’s been many changes within the four walls of the Cork Indo during my time there, not least the walls moving from office to home in March 2020, so unfortunately my goodbyes for now will all be done virtually.

What you’re reading now will be my very last article so a huge thank you to you, the reader, as well as all of the team, present and past, at the Cork Independent.

Trojan work is put in behind the scenes to make this paper happen every week and I’m going to miss it all terribly.

Stay safe and take care.