Just regarding the backlog in relation to Irish passports, a family friend locally had a sibling die sudden in the UK and was unable to get to their funeral due to not having got their passport renewal back in time even though they had applied for it weeks beforehand. Having been in the UK recently, the airlines will not let you travel w/o a passport even though there was no passport check on the UK side, funnily enough on returning to Ireland all arrivals from the UK had to pass thru a passport check and immigration control including myself. It seems they are stricter on this side of the pond.
I renewed my own recently, I paid extra for the express service which usually takes 14 days, I had to wait nearly 4 weeks to receive it. Consequently I believe new passport admin have been recruited to deal with the surge and there is some kind of online application in the offing.
Apologies for being a pedant, but... "The Pond" refers to the Atlantic Ocean. "This side of the Pond" refers to being either one one side, the New World, or the other, in Europe.
I don't know what is the equivalent expression regarding the Irish Sea, but the way you're using it gives the wrong idea.