This has had a huge impact on performers, venues, and booking agents, whose livelihoods were turned upside down overnight with all their income streams drying up almost immediately.
"It's kind of like on Facebook you feel like you're begging for money, that you're looking for charity - that's not what we're about and it shouldn't be like that." Musician and booking agent Lesley Kane says live performers in Ireland "really don't know where we stand at the moment". She says: "We don't know if we can take the odd gig because if you take the odd gig you lose whatever income support you do have."
He said: "I don't know if there are any other industries that have as little a back-to-work programme as the live music industry."