On Thursday March 12th 2020, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar delivered perhaps the most important speech of his political career. He had arrived in Washington DC a few days before St. Patrick’s Day for the annual shamrock ceremony with President Trump. But Varadkar’s speech was not directed at an American audience. His listeners were at home in Ireland and his message had nothing to do with the national feast day.
“I need to speak to you about Coronavirus and Covid-19”, he began. The day before, 11 March, the World Health Authority (WHO) had classified Covid-19 as a worldwide pandemic. So everyone was agog to see how Ireland would respond to this news.
In his remarks delivered outside Blair House where he was staying, Varadkar announced a series of restrictions on Irish citizens’ freedom of movement that amounted to “big changes in the way we live our lives”. These included lockdowns, working from home, and social distancing. But the biggest bombshell of all came when Varadkar told us that “Schools, colleges, and childcare facilities will close from tomorrow”.1
One Irish journalist went out on a limb, pointing out a couple of oddities in the Taoiseach’s address. Why did he not consult his cabinet colleagues before imposing “the most stringent limitation on human activity ordered by a government in this State since World War II”? Indeed how was it that Varadkar retained the political authority to make such an earth-shattering announcement in the first place? His party had lost 12 seats in a general election a month earlier, garnering fewer votes than either Fianna Fáil or Sinn Féin. The same reporter described this outcome as, “the first time in history that Fine Gael was not one of the two largest parties in the country”.2
Interesting questions, even though the answers are still not apparent. But surely the biggest anomaly of all was Varadkar’s decision to close schools overnight? “Tomorrow” was Friday, a day that parents and teachers must have expected would be like any other working day, with the kids in school while the parents were out working. Instead Varadkar’s announcement triggered “mass panic”, as shoppers filled the supermarkets and grocery stores in a desperate bid to load up on supplies before the apocalypse descended.
Why did the Taoiseach not defer the closure of schools until the following Monday? That would have allowed everyone to finish out the week as normal, leaving a couple of days for working parents to make alternative child-minding arrangements. But would such a delay have induced the sense of fear and bewilderment which, from that moment on, gripped the hearts and minds of Irish citizens?
Of course not. Varadkar began as he has continued, maintaining and feeding public anxiety to a level that has made it possible for government to impose even greater restrictions on our freedoms than most of us could have imagined two years ago - compulsory mask-wearing and vaccine passports being the most extraordinary. We were told that these unprecedented measures were taken in order to defeat a virus that, as I outlined here, had an imperceptible impact on the country in 2020.
In his Washington speech the Taoiseach claimed that “we have not witnessed a pandemic of this nature in living memory. This is unchartered (sic) territory.”3 “Living memory” perhaps - but “unchartered territory”?
The Great Famine had a devastating effect on Ireland and its people during the 1840s. But it was not the only ordeal that afflicted the country during the 19th century. There was also smallpox. It was, according to a modern commentator, a
highly infectious disease… feared and loathed in Ireland and elsewhere because of its disfiguring effects and relatively high mortality rate, often around 20%.4
This was a time before Ireland had its own government. The country was then part of the UK and ruled by the British parliament in Westminster. There were no mass communications to allow official bulletins to reach everyone at the same time. Vaccines were in their infancy and viruses were largely unknown to medical science.
So how did politicians, the medical fraternity, and the media deal with smallpox a century-and-a-half ago? What measures were taken? How were they communicated to the people and how did the people respond?
I will address these and related questions in Part 2.
Irish Times, 13 Mar. 2020.
Irish Examiner, 14 Mar. 2020.
Irish Times, 13 Mar. 2020.
Laurence Geary, ‘Vaccination in Ireland: The evolution of a process’, History Ireland, 29/6, Nov/Dec 2021, pp. 28-31.
I still remember the drama if that speech 'never will so many ask so much of so few'
Triggering all out panic and doing so deliberately
Who could forget that speech that day fadó, fadó. We were all living in normieland then. I was completely taken in by the scam. I mean that was a fantastic speech and Varadker acted it well