Wind of change continues to blow
as Ireland evolves
I HAVEN’T exactly been here that long but I’ve never known
anything like this storm and even as I write it’s still going on.
The wind has ripped around the house for nearly a month now. The odd day
here and there it falls away but it’s soon back.
We have lost roof tiles, trees and a shed that was simply not there one
morning.
It lay instead in pieces around the yard. The Atlantic has a knack of
reminding you how close it is from time to time and we all have sat through
some ferocious storms — but this is one that just seems to be going
on
and on.
From a summer that never seemed to end we have gone into a gale that never
seems to stop.
One evening I went out and the light coming across the fields made me
stop and stare.
The wind had died down a bit and the chill of winter lay across the ground.
The light from the setting sun took on a strange orange glow and seemed
to alter as it fell.
It reminded me that once not long after moving here we were treated to
the Northern Lights. We watched light pulse in and out of the Irish sky
as if there were figures moving behind a screen. It was one of the strangest
things I’ve ever seen.
I lived all of my life in cities before coming to live in Ireland. I’m
not sure whether it’s a trick of the mind or just age creeping up
on me but I’m sure I never used to be so affected by the weather.
It feels like the weather had less impact on me when I lived in the city.
The city moves to its own rhythms and dictates its own pace irrespective
of the natural world.
In the country everything we do seems dictated by the state of the weather.
This wind has driven us all indoors in a way even the rain wouldn’t.
After one particularly bad night we had to clear trees from the lane so
that we could get a visitor back to the airport.
The phone line is down — it lies under a tree and the dogs slink
from one rain-driven spot to another.
At least the old outbuildings look immoveable. They don’t even leak.
I guess they built things differently then.
I heard someone saying recently that in modern, go-getting Ireland the
background noise is ever-present. The TV, radio, mobile phones, controversy,
traffic and constant yell of fame. What is just as noticeable though is
how much Ireland still offers the silence and reflection it always had.
A night sky. A country lane. A field. A sodden lane.
The wind has driven us in from that and like no other weather that relentless
blowing tires you out.
A recent article in the paper stated that more and more of the world’s
population are living in urban environments and the number doing so increases
each year.
Looking at the sky you’d count your blessings to be living in rural
Ireland now.
We have a big old ash tree in the corner. It must be at least 50 years
old. It will have seen a lot of changes in this old yard.
The wind has ripped branches off it — literally torn them away so
that freshly-torn white wood now marks the old tree.
They look like wounds.
Some much younger, much flimsier-looking trees we planted ourselves have
survived unscathed and the shed seems to have flown through a whole bank
of trees without touching one of them.
It lies now against one of the outbuildings and other pieces are up the
top of a tree. We remember now that one night we sat by the fire and it
suddenly sounded as if a plane was landing outside the door so strong
did the wind suddenly become.
The front of the house is covered in a fine layer of silt and you can
barely see through the windows.
One thing you never lose sight of living here is how beautiful the country
is.
It makes the careless, greedy treatment of it all the more galling.
There is also the sense that in a country without a past where a whole
generation is being reared by nannies with cleaners and huge bedrooms
and en-suites as a given there is something in Ireland that itself remembers.
Away from the sordid politics and the naked greed the country itself survives
and Ireland is Ireland.
The wind is still blowing and the forecast by all accounts is bad. The
rain is driving on.
Fields lie spectacularly under water. But it’ll all blow over.
We put the radio on and watch the clouds scud over the Irish fields. Lucky.
| 