WICKLOW, Ireland – Like many others, I naively believed that, with statistics revealing that 90 percent of the Irish people over age 12 have received their second jab and are, hence, “fully vaccinated” against coronavirus, we could at last put it behind us and resume our lives as normal.  Eventually, we would look back on eighteen months of lockdowns and disruptions as a strange period, when there was a climate of fear, yet equally, when we collectively realised what was most important as we huddled close with our nearest and dearest.