Carnage. That's how Galway woman Mary Concannon described Bournemouth after half a million people made a post-lockdown dash for the seaside town, whose year-round population is less than 200,000. Mary didn't expand on the gritty details of what the "carnage" actually looked like at street level, but she did mention that public toilets hadn't re-opened yet, so you can use your imagination.  

Many of us are taking a fresh look at our pre-Covid life choices and Mary Concannon is no exception, as she told Ryan Tubridy on Thursday. Living in the UK for the past 10 years, she told Ryan that she's all set to start a nursing degree in September, an ambition inspired by the ideals behind the UK's National Health Service. But Brexit and the evolving response to the coronavirus is causing her to re-evaluate her plans to stay in the UK. 

Ryan asked her how she felt, watching hundreds of thousands of day-trippers crowding the beaches of her adopted home town:

"Initially I was disgusted, then I was angry and then I was a bit fascinated by their stupidity."

Like many Irish people working abroad, Mary tunes in to what's happening back home via radio. She said she was relieved to hear Ryan say on his show recently that Ireland seemed to be managing pretty well when it came to delaying the spread of Covid-19:

"You were saying that things were kind of in hand and I was really proud and I was really happy to hear that because I've got parents in Galway."

Who knows if the pandemic will give rise to a wave of reverse emigration from the UK when the dust finally settles, but Mary for one is taking a new look at her choices:

"After I do my nursing degree, I'm really going to have to evaluate if I want to be here. Do I want to grow old in a country that, you know, there will be another pandemic, of course there will be: but do I want to be in a society that has such a lack of respect for one another?"

Mary is a big fan of the UK's National Health Service and the broad range of services it offered to British citizens in the post-war era. But the aspiring nurse is concerned that the money just won't be around to support it in the post-Covid era:

"The NHS really relies on taxpayers funds. There'll be a lot less money in the NHS. I think a second wave will hit us hard over here."

Along with the direct hit every economy in the world has taken because of the pandemic, Mary says another factor already playing on her mind was Brexit:

"For me, I sort of lost a bit of faith in what was happening over here. So I had already started thinking about coming back home, but I think this has definitely re-affirmed my decision."

You can listen back to Ryan Tubridy's full interview with Mary Concannon here.

Ruth Kennedy