On Saturday, out for my one permitted walk, I saw something I don’t think I have ever seen before. A word came to mind, one of those words we only ever use in a single context: cortège. It meant, originally, the train of attendants on an important person. We use it to mean the procession of cars that follows in the wake of the hearse, signalling by their presence that this, too, was an important person. The lights changed and the hearse moved off unaccompanied, in bleak solitude, in the direction of Glasnevin Cemetery.

Source: The Irish Times March 31, 2020 04:00 UTC