Anne Lucey: Farewell, mummy, and thanks for the company in the depths of UCC library

Now about to be repatriated to Egypt, the mummy was a familiar and even friendly sight to University College Cork students and staff in the 1980s

'Mid 1980s, I was head-down in the documents library in the basement when the mummy appeared in a dim corridor where he had been deposited without fuss.' Picture: Denis Mortell

I can’t be the only one who has had a conversation with the UCC mummy, I reflected this week as news broke somewhat regrettably that the lodestar of my 1980s was going Nileside.

Most English graduates of UCC in the 1980s would confess to having close relationships with dead as well as living authors. It was that kind of era. A tumultuous time. A lively time. The difficult decade mostly glossed over now but canyon-deep in its divisions. An era before Instagram or even the internet. A reader’s paradise.