Five years ago, on Thursday 12 March 2020, the then taoiseach Leo Varadkar gave a landmark address to the nation from Washington DC.
Mr Varadkar was in the US capital where he was making the annual State visit for St Patrick's Day. He told the waiting media: "I need to speak to you about coronavirus and Covid-19." He went on to announce that schools, colleges, and childcare facilities would close and teaching would move online. "We have not witnessed a pandemic of this nature in living memory.
This is uncharted territory," he said. Five years on, we have been asking people in Dublin how they remember the day that everything changed.