January
31
/ 2021
‘Lockdown’ is a word we now see on a daily basis as the 2020 coronavirus pandemic requires limiting the movements and activities of communities during the mass quarantine of most of the world’s population. But this is not the first time such drastic social measures have been taken. 1666 AD was known as the “Devil’s Year” for much more than its numerical association with the number of the Biblical Beast. No sooner had the diabolical date begun, when on January 26 France declared war on England and Munster against a backdrop of the “Black Death” (bubonic plague) that decimated the population between 1665 - 1666. According to historian Ben Johnstone, in September 1666 when the Great Fire of London swept
