Rick O’Shea: Reading about the world coming to a halt is way better than the reality

From Day of the Triffids to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, there’s a strange kind of comfort in fictional Armageddons

Emma Relph and John Duttine in 1980s BBC drama The Day of the Triffids. The book is much better. Photo: Dave Edwards/BBC

Rick O'Shea

My social media feeds have recently reminded me of photos I took and things I posted online four years ago in the first few weeks of lockdown after the world came shuddering to a halt.

I had a different view to most other people — I was still going to work in RTÉ every day, driving through checkpoints and abandoned streets, broadcasting from an almost empty building. I stopped one Saturday morning in Donnybrook village and stood in the middle of the road for a while just to take pictures. I described it to friends later as being like 28 Days Later without the zombies.