LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Mayo call to get Covid-19 social distancing signs up in our fields

Sir,

I was speaking to my father Michael McDonnell (who was born in 1931 - he is 89 gone since March - and grew up during World War 2) about Covid-19 on the week coming up to his birthday about how quickly it has spread in other countries and how the same was happening in Ireland.

Dad said: "It's like during the War, the Irish people put signs up all around the country saying "EIRE" to let the Germans know not to bomb us and now we are fighting an 'Invisible War' with each other and we need to ask each other to keep back.”

So with the help of seven people from the Killeen area, from a grandmother to a granddaughter, my sister and three good friends of mine, six women and one man, I organised us together to gather stones off the head of our local beach, Cross Beach in Killeen, where we are all from, to lay out the stones facing towards Croagh Patrick as a visual to ask people as the sign said to stay "6 FT A-PART" (pictured). The dash is exactly 6 ft. in length.

On Friday night, March 27, 2020, when we were finishing our sign we got word that our Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had thankfully locked the country down.

But in the last week or so more traffic is on the roads in our local area and all around Ireland and more new people have come to our area in the last few days.

So I decided to finish the painting of the stones in white weather protection paint on April 23 with my sister Michelle's help.

We got a ladder on the back of a van to take the photograph but a drone would do better justice which I don't have.

I would be delighted if you would publish the photograph on your social media as a call to those good men and women of Connaught and beyond to get signs up in fields and areas where people might view them as a call to attention to the passers-by who might need a visual reminder of the local people's request to maintain the social distance so we can all go on the journey of our lives with our loved ones that bit longer.

Our older generation are passing away all around and we are losing some of the finest and wisest people who we'll never see again.

God bless all.

Yours,

Aileen McDonnell,

Cross,

Killeen,

Louisburgh.