The pandemic changed the lives and livelihoods of thousands of people in an instant. ''We'd be flying to the US and around Europe, but now I'm ploughing a field,'' Ciaran O'Regan says from the cab of a tractor in a field he has just ploughed in Ladysbridge, East Cork.
He has been a pilot with Aer Lingus for the last five years, which he saw as a passion more than a job. However, now he is working as a farming contractor. "Well, it's more of a necessity, I have to do it to supplement my income because I've got bills to pay like everyone else," he adds. ''I'm very happy to have something else to do but there's a lot of people not as fortunate," he says.