The last few months have been a strange time for everyone. Most of all, for the people who have been affected directly by COVID-19, either contracting the virus themselves, or losing a loved one to the virus. Everyone has been affected in one way or another. From having to work from home, to losing one’s job, to students having six months away from school, to parents and grandparents not getting to see their children and grandchildren. Every one of us has a story to tell about their time in “lockdown”. Here is one person’s account of her life during this bizarre time. Pauline Matthews has been a volunteer with the Cork Folklore Project for the last few years, conducting many excellent interviews on Cork people’s experiences of working in such Cork institutions as Beamish & Crawford, Cash’s, Ford and many others. Pauline, over the last few months, has documented her experience of “cocooning” during the pandemic. Through her audio, video, photographs and writings, she has captured and expressed what many of us have been experiencing. Here are just some of Pauline’s audio entries dealing with the start, middle and end of the national “lockdown”. Pauline’s collection consists of approximately 50 audio entries, 50 Photographs, as well as written documents and videos. We would like to thank Pauline for her contribution. Not only is this material valuable in itself, it also creates a steady narrative charting the main developments of the pandemic, providing a valuable backdrop to the questionnaire entries contributed by many others to our still-running ‘Chronicles of COVID-19’ project.
Recording and Sharing the Memories of Cork