An Irish pharmacy has created a picturesque window to our new world of Covid for passersby.
Ger Walsh, who runs a busy chemist with her GP husband Dr Vincent Walsh, decided to dress a window with a pandemic theme next to her business in Celbridge, Co Kildare.
Pharmacy technician Ger, who for years has dazzled locals with her colourful shop fronts, decided to go for something different after the world was turned upside down by the coronavirus.
So she created a window of 28 large captioned photos to show how the pandemic has hit not just Kildare and Ireland, but the entire world.
Ger’s display, called 2020: A Year Like No Other, illustrate how our daily lives have changed since the virus emerged at the start of the year.
Large A4-sized photos depict in stark detail everything from life and death, health and sickness, to social, cultural, religious, political, and economic life.
Even Donald Trump, pictured from behind, makes an appearance, with the caption “2020: The Year That Saw the back of Trump”.
And the hope given by recent news of a vaccine, where a vital breakthrough was made by another Kildare woman, Dr Tess Lambe, show a figure in a darkened tunnel - but with light at the end.
Ger told the Irish Mirror: “I’ve loved doing shop windows for years, but I knew I had to do something different for the year that is in it.
“I’d lay in bed at night thinking about how the virus had affected all of our lives and thought I should reflect that in the window.
“For a month I wrote down all the ideas that came to me - I wanted to show the good and the bad. The neighbours helping the old, those battling the virus in hospital.
“Everything from working at home to businesses struggling. It’s been a very tough year on so many - and sadly so many have died.
“And the good side where canals like in Venice are now cleaner than ever.
“I couldn’t forget Donald Trump. He was in the news so much and now thankfully we are seeing the back of him.
“The coronavirus brought the entire world to a standstill and made us stop, pause, think, reflect and look at life in a completely different way.”
Ger’s display is in the window of her pharmacy’s old gift shop on the village’s main street.
