Sir, – In the autumn of 2020, my son left our small Connecticut town to embark on a journey, his first year attending Trinity College Dublin, in the land of his grandmother’s birth. Although Covid had the world in its grip, he held high hopes, we all did, as I watched him walk through the departing gate that grey September morning.
Arriving, he discovered a world far different than expected; on-line classes, Freshers’ Week cancelled, Irish roommates, that never did arrive; a city in lockdown, a dream on hold.
Fast-forward four years, November 22nd, 2024. It is a brilliantly sunny morning. I stand in the historic Trinity courtyard, among a sea of parents, caregivers and friends, eagerly awaiting the final leg of their loved one’s journey. The procession of graduates make their way through the front square for one last photo, in the place they have called home, for the last four years. But this is a class that faced a challenge far more sinister than one of loneliness and workload. A class that may one day tell their grandchildren, “I made it through the pandemic.”
And as they depart that magnificent campus, many perhaps, for the last time, they will revel with their loved ones in a Dublin city, once again alive, with music and song. – Yours, etc,
KATHERINE SIMMONS,
Redding,
Connecticut, US.
