Joyce Fegan: Counting the cost of a year in solitary confinement

All of our social distancing and restricted living has had a purpose, to keep us safe, but it has also had a cost. This cost is something we will have to examine and recover from.

Christmas mass on Zoom; agnostic, atheist, or lapsed follower of faith, there will be no in-person rendition of 'Silent Night' or the spine-tingling witnessing of a singer reach the dizzyingly high notes of 'O Holy Night'.

You will not be able to hear your local priest welcome back our wild geese and look around your local church to see what neighbour or classmate or old lover is home from Canada, Australia or London.