8 things we have learned a year on from the first Covid case
Family haircuts at home became common during the quarantine lockdown which closed all hairdressers.
It’s a year since the first case of Covid-19 appeared in Ireland and so it’s time to look back on the things we did over 12 months of a global pandemic. There was the banana bread phase, the Zoom quiz phase and the quiet existential crisis phase but what are the things that we all did together that will last long after our lives return to normal.
Google trends for 2020 in Ireland revealed that we all fancied ourselves as ontestants and ‘How to Bake Scones’ actually made it into the top five how-to searches of the year. We all got tired of the banana bread of lockdown one and yeasty doughs soon became the rage with curious living, breathing, bubbling starters appearing in fridges all over the country. Co-author of the Aisling series of bestselling books Sarah Breen is now a master baker.
“I’ve never really enjoyed cooking or baking but I really love eating, particularly bread. When Colm O’Gorman tweeted that he was going to very generously post daily videos showing how to make sourdough from scratch, I was intrigued. I always believed that making sourdough bread was overly complicated and time-consuming, but Colm really demystified the process and made it accessible. All you need is a large jar, flour and water to get a starter going. And, most importantly, time – which we all have plenty of at the moment. It took a week for my starter to become active enough to use but I loved the ritual of daily feeds and watching it progress. My first loaf wasn’t amazing but I now bake two a week and am getting ready to experiment with different flours and flavours. Colm’s easy-to-follow videos are all there on his Instagram and I can’t recommend them enough.”
The old trope of Ireland being closer to Boston than Berlin certainly rang true this year as both the US Election and CNN topped and tailed our most searched terms of the entire year!
Joe Biden was the person we googled the most in 2020 while Donald Trump came in at number five. Kim Jong Un was number three but that’s because of the fierce support of the North Korean leader in the midlands. We really do love America and Irish people who live there so it’s no surprise that we all fell in love with Cahirsiveen’s Donie O’Sullivan when he reported from Capital Hill for CNN and begged legendary political commentator John King to come visit his ancestral homeland as soon as pesky pandemics allow.
Learning a new skill or relearning an old one became a big feature of the last year with sales of knit kits, needlepoint frames and crochet hooks going through the roof. As we all searched for a way to keep our hands and minds busy #knitstagram really took off. Journalist and knitter Karen Birney has taken to the craft so much that she’s launching a business.
“During the pandemic I found myself out of work, applying for jobs and, in between, twiddling my thumbs. One day my mom handed me the balls of yarn I had sitting at home for years and told me knitting might help me ignore the news for a bit. I caught the knitting bug fast, and before I knew it, I was creating my own designs, my own patterns, and friends wanted me to make pieces for them. In October, I set up an Instagram page, @missshesgotknits, to document my hobby and before long was being approached by strangers to knit for them too. It's given me an outlet to channel my messy pandemic feelings and I love it for that. Who knows if it ends up being something I do as a business, a hobby, or for therapy? However it goes, I feel like I've found something that's with me now for life."
It turns out you can actually finish Netflix and lots of us did in 2020. The five most searched shows of the last year were Normal People, Love Island, The Queen’s Gambit, The Fall and Operation Transformation. Two very different takes on love, a woman who takes up a new hobby, a confusingly sexy serial killer and a need to rein in the excess seem to sum up the last year pretty well. Normal People also gave some the opportunity to complain about sex on national radio which cheered the rest of us up no end!
One good thing to come from the last 12 months was our newfound understanding of the importance of shopping local. What started as a nice way to support our favourite local businesses quickly turned to necessity as the fear of customs charges and product shortages post Brexit became a reality. Champion Green was founded by Marian O’Gorman, Kilkenny Design CEO who said that “people have discovered a whole new appreciation of what community means. We can harness this new realisation to ensure businesses and individuals in our community that are most in need of support are not left behind. That is what it means to love local.” According to figures from Revolut the promotion helped boost shopping on .IE websites by 135% over the ‘Green Friday’ weekend last November.
Coming in at number four on the How To list of searches is How To Cut Men’s Hair. Men are clearly the braver sex and there wasn’t a clippers to be found online during Lockdown One.
Many of the men of Ireland are sporting choppier or more minimal locks than ever before as wives, partners, mums and housemates were called upon to do the deed. This month Instagram was thrilled to be privy to Virgin Media Television’s Richard Chambers get an at home haircut from colleague and housemate Zara King. It seems even top news reporters with a direct line into Tony Holohan have to resort to Friday night chops in the kitchen.
The events of the last 12 months have shown us that we often need to find a new way to do almost everything. How we celebrate, work, show love has all had to change and anybody with a customer facing business has had to find a way of reaching people without touching people.
Jane Walker who runs Happy Cubs (@happycubs.ie) had to find a way of interacting with babies and children without being in the same room as them. “Happy Cubs is the home of Swim Cubs and Music Cubs classes where we teach life skills to babies, toddlers and big cubs. When our classes closed across our Dublin and Wicklow venues, we knew we could continue to bring the magic of music to our little cubs. So, we cleared a space in our house, bought some equipment and rejigged our classes for our at home experience. A big positive has been that we can now reach a wider audience and we’ve also added an online shop to our website our customers can buy wooden musical toys to play during our classes at home. We've received feedback from customers saying the online classes are more accessible for them. Families with two or more children can now pay for one class for the whole family.
We send you a link to the recorded classes so you can rewatch them again at a time that fits around your schedule. Adapting our business has been a huge learning curve. We’ve opened up new revenue streams for our business. We’ve learned we’re resilient.
With gyms closed and 5k walks just not cutting it lots of fitness professionals have turned their focus to the internet and are offering everything from virtual weight training to yoga and pilates classes on demand. Maura Rath who runs @yogawithmaura was quick to see the potential of going online.
“The day after the schools closed, I went live on Instagram and shared what yoga does for me, and how, in uncertain times, it might also help others. I got great feedback from people who were reaping the benefits of yoga in their own home and that’s when I decided to create a virtual yoga studio. Some of my clients discovered that they actually prefer in-home yoga over going to the studio, so I will definitely continue to run the virtual studio.”
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