In Ireland, we have to wait another couple of weeks before we see a significant ease on Covid-19 restrictions but Irish people living overseas in countries emerging from lockdowns have shared their experiences. "The excitement has given us such a boost," says Louise Greally in Spain. Caragh Curran in Dubai says: "Everyone's temperature is taken if you go to shops, and masks are mandatory." Our most-read story this week is about Irish scientist, Prof Adrian Hill, whose team in Oxford University's Jenner Institute is leaping ahead in the race to find a vaccine to stop the coronavirus. Prof Hill, from Dublin, is one of five researchers involved in the effort.
It's been a time of tough decisions for many emigrants. Niamh O'Connor wrote about her decision to leave London, where she has spent years building a music career that she loves, and return to Ireland because of the coronavirus pandemic: "Moving back to Dublin to leave it all behind unnerved me at that point." Over in New Zealand, Molly Davies shared how she was almost oblivious to what was happening during the beginning the Covid-19 crisis. "I worked and lived on a boat in a very remote part of New Zealand for a week at a time with limited connection to the outside world," Molly says. And Tipperary woman, Denis O'Reilly, explains how life in Washington has changed for her since the pandemic: "I live on my own so I'm physically isolated from friends and family right now, but we're chatting even more regularly now than we used to."
In a break from coronavirus-related news, Nathan Mannion's Extraordinary Emigrant's article this week took a look at an incredible Irishwoman who defied society's expectations at the time to make history. Elizabeth Le Blond, from Greystones, Co Wicklow, was the world's first mountain filmmaker and also one of the first Irish women to climb the Alps: "The Greystones woman who climbed the Alps in long skirts to avoid scandal."
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