Before the Easter weekend, we were shocked to hear that ferries were carrying visitors from England across the Irish Sea and, according to Cork and Kerry people, cars were streaming past their homes headed for West Cork, the Dingle Peninsula and holiday cottages and caravan sites in the west.

It was an Eastertide evening in Boston many decades ago and Liam MacGabhann, the young reporter from Valentia Island who was covering one of Éamon de Valera’s fundraising trips to the States for Fianna Fáil, was just finished writing his report of the day’s events for the family newspaper The Irish Press when the knock came on his hotel door.