This weekend the camper vans arrived in Skerries. They were lined up all along the South Strand, on the sea-side of the road. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many camper vans in one place. It’s a sure sign of these times, with hotels and guesthouses out of action. And without querying the distances travelled, it is very Covid friendly.

Skerries was full of visitors. The whole of Red Island became a car-park for the two days. There was little grass left free of cars. People were having picnics on the grass tucked in behind their cars, enjoying the sunshine and sheltering from a biting wind. Even on the hottest, calmest days there is always a breeze at Red Island.  

We call it Red Island but it’s not an island really, it used to be way back before the sands silted up over time to connect it to the mainland. Now it is linked to the town by the harbour road with its bars, restaurants and coffee shops. It is the little peninsula that separates the beaches. The sandy south strand with the off-shore islands and our north strand with the deeper water and views along the coastline as far as the Mourne Mountains to the North. If you look at an aerial view of Red Island and the harbour, you will see the outline of St Patrick’s goat; the goat that the Skerries people stole from him many centuries ago. So that’s where it went. It was under his nose all along!

Our youngest, Mike, wanted to get out of Skerries. He has barely set foot outside the town in the last year,  so myself and Michael were happy to indulge him. The sun was shining and we took the top down on the car and headed off, as we say in Skerries, “under the bridge”.  We decided to avoid the coast and make our way into Dublin, using a sort of reverse psychology. If the city was coming to us, we would go to the city.

When we came to the end of the motorway, we took the tunnel to the docklands and crossed over the river Liffey. To the left we could see large ferries moored up along the docks and of course the red and white Pigeon House chimneys in the distance marking the mouth of Liffey and Dublin Bay.  Looking right towards town, the bridge designed by Calatrava stands out proud amongst the modern buildings in the Financial Centre. But my son of course was focusing on the Aviva Stadium straight ahead. His favourite view, he proclaimed. It is a striking building on the horizon.  It rises up above the old houses in all its glassy glory.  But it’s the great memories of all those rugby matches that were coming back to him and his father as well as the dream of playing one day in that stadium in a green (or Leinster blue) jersey. We took the old route and drove past the Aviva, for old times sake. Sadly, it is silent for the moment but hopefully it won’t be too long before the roar of the crowd returns to Lansdowne Road.

There was an eerie quiet about the place. Not a good quiet because you can’t help but think about all of the businesses that have their doors closed and the human stories behind this. Our mission was simple really. It was to seek out human life and maybe find somewhere to have lunch. We were half tricking ourselves into thinking that it might be possible to sit down outside a restaurant. Soon. But not yet.

We finally found an open carpark at the Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre. It was only half full. I felt like an extra in a zombie apocalypse movie walking through the shopping centre in my mask with all the shutters down except for the odd coffee shop and Dunnes Stores supermarket. When we got outside to Stephen’s Green there were people about, wandering around in the sunshine in summer clothes despite the cool breeze funnelling up Grafton Street. There were no buskers dotted along Grafton Street closely guarding the prize busking spots. Sadly there was no music.

We decamped to the park in Stephen’s Green and sat on a bench eating our lunch and looking at the ducks on the pond and people going about their lives. In Stephen’s Green it’s clearly the pigeons that rule the roost. They have developed the art of swooping towards you in the hope that you get a fright and drop what you are eating. It obviously works sometimes because they were all at it. It was a pretty unnerving game of chicken but then again us seasiders are well used to the Seagulls and their antics, so we knew not to show weakness! You would have to admire the pigeons’ ingenuity in their attempts to outwit us. Despite the onslaught it was still good to have a change of scenery. It was nice to see people out in the sunshine. You could momentarily forget you were living through a pandemic.

We drove back to Skerries doing our usual spin around the harbour before heading home. The harbour wall was also busy with people sitting on it and leaning against it, soaking up the sun (and also soaking up plenty of alcohol too). The tide had gone out, so the SUP boarders and swimmers, that were there before we left, had moved on, but the beach was still busy. In fact it was so busy on the harbour that apparently the restaurants had run out of drink! We can’t blame the visitors for this because, of course, the locals were out in full force too.  Our eldest, Sally-Anne, was proud of the fact that at the end of a very busy shift on the harbour, she managed to enjoy the last pint squeezed out of the last keg of Guinness. Well deserved.

When we got back to the South Strand it was about four in the afternoon and the town was beginning to empty out. The camper vans had dwindled in number and we were able to reclaim a parking space outside the house. We had a lovely day, but I think I will wait until Dublin opens up again before I venture back.

Hopefully the fact that everyone was outside will mean that we will not end up paying a price for the taste of freedom we saw playing out this weekend (sad news coming out of India is a worry). But then again someone in this house got his vaccine today and my parents, who are fully vaccinated, got to hold their four and a half month old grandchild yesterday for the first time. (There’s another little grandchild in Australia we are all looking forward to meet soon). Also Mike headed off this evening to play his first nine holes of golf in almost a year. So, no matter what, it is different to this time last year. Things have moved on and there are many reasons to be hopeful.