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Erin go “brrr”
By Malcolm Rogers
Malcolm rogers looks at the Irish weather and how it might affect your holiday.
 A blanket of snow covered the entire Cooley Peninsula on Christmas morning 2004, and for two days it looked as if we were living in one of those snow-scene glass paperweights. Snow has lain on the ground three times this winter.
Mind you, it wasn’t just the north-east corner of the country which had a white Christmas. As James Joyce put it: “The newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves.”
We had our two days of snow, then the temperature abruptly rose to about 13 degrees centigrade, and the winds began howling like some bereft banshee. A week later they had plunged to below freezing again, and people were again saying things like, “I’m just going out — I may be some time,” or quipping: “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does a damn thing about it.” The camaraderie of cold weather.
But harsh winters in Ireland are relatively uncommon. The island is generally kept warm by the Gulf Stream, giving us a climate which is normally much warmer than our northerly position would dictate. Take this year’s European City of Culture, Cork. It may surprise you to learn that at this time of the year Cork is the warmest city in the world this far north. The average temperature on the banks of the lovely Lee in mid-February is seven degrees Celsius. Now were we to travel eastwards on the same line of latitude we’d arrive in London, where we might start putting our gloves on as the temperature of an average January day will have dropped to five or six degrees. Further east, and on to Berlin; and the temperature drops even more dramatically. The thermometer now reads zero, and is liable to plunge further, right through to March. And we might also need our boots on as the ground is likely to be covered in snow, since it sticks around for an average of 40 days each winter in Berlin, compared to only three in Cork.
The further east we venture, past Warsaw and deep into Russia, the lower the mercury falls for this time of year. It reaches its lowest in eastern Siberia, where the latitude is still 52 degrees north, but the temperature on an average February day can be as low as minus 20 degrees. This is a good deal parkier than Cork, and probably wouldn’t have you staggering home at night singing the Banks Of My Own Lovely Lee.
Winnipeg, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada lie roughly on the same latitude as Cork, and are two degrees of latitude further south than Cork. Their average temperatures in January are, however, minus 12 and minus 10, respectively.
The implication here is clear. If you’re looking to escape harsh winter temperatures, Ireland is as good as it gets.
However, the current global worry is not overly concerned about the cold, but about the heat. The last two summers in Europe have seen temperatures rise to well in excess of a very uncomfortable 40 degrees Celsius (well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit). In Ireland they have remained fairly normal, the temperatures ranging between a comfortable 60 - 70 degrees F.
In 2004 there was a lot of rain, but in 2003, because it was dry and the rest of Europe (including much of Britain) was frying, Ireland was undoubtedly the place to be. Normally the only thing in summer keeping people off the beaches is the horizontal rain — but in 2003 Ireland’s glorious beaches were the only place to be.
Ireland’s climate is dictated by that great weather machine the Atlantic. The Gulf Stream keeps us warm in the winter, the Atlantic keeps us cool in the summer. The ocean is also responsible for the unpredictability of our weather — sometimes it seems as if we have all four seasons in one day. The old joke says that we don’t have a climate - we just get samples.
“Often when the weather is riotous, black clouds change then colour as they sail in, turning black and blue, the lightning shining every other minute, making crescents and crosses... Hailstones as big as pullets’ eggs arrive...” I quote from a translation of the Irish by Padraic de Bhaldraithe, from Seamas Maconlomaire’s ‘The Shores Of Connemara’. Doesn’t it just make you want to go there to gaze at one of the best shows nature provides?
But back to the more prosaic: in the middle and east of the country temperatures tend to be somewhat more extreme. Here the summer mean daily maximum is about 19 degrees Celsius, and winter mean daily minimum can be as low as 2.5 degrees Celsius. The coldest part of the country at sea level is likely to be in Co. Kilkenny or Co. Offaly (although there’s no connection with the name of Birr).
But it is rainfall which is Ireland’s defining feature. Horizontal rain which is fired from the sea like a cannonade, soft drizzle which you barely notice falling, stair rods which can blind you if you’re walking into the wind. The country doesn’t get that green by accident, as the old excuse goes.
Because you see, it does tip it down rather unmercifully at times. But it does depend very much on where you are. According to Met Éireann it varies from 31 inches — which is about the same as London — to some 110 inches a year in some places, which is the equivalent to living in a bathroom with the shower on the whole time. Actually that’s not quite true — 110 inches per annum means that it only rains just over 200 days in the year. You’ll find these generally in the west, north west and south west. The bogs of Mayo receive more than 50 inches a year, parts of Fermanagh regularly record over 60 inches a year, and 141 inches fell on the Ring of Kerry in 1903. Belfast on the other hand is regularly under 35 inches. (London is round the 32 inch mark).
With cloudless skies in relatively short supply, it’s odd really that it was an Irishman, scientist John Tyndall from Co. Carlow, who worked out why the sky is blue (it’s all to do
with the wavelength of light, apparently).
The sunniest part of the country is the south-east — so if you’re going for a short break, and you really want to sample some Irish sun, head for Wexford or Waterford.
OK, so we’ve established that the climate can be a little iffy, but the country is prepared for it, and indeed so should you. There really is no such thing as bad weather — only bad clothes. For about £100 you could kit yourself out in waterproof gear that will stand any amount of Irish rainfall. Even if it’s a fine soft day bucketing down, you’ll be snug inside your Gore-Tex.
And there’s more good news — because inclement weather is not unknown on our island, there is probably a greater spectrum of places of entertainment than you’d get on the Mediterranean, where all entertainment is designed on the principal that the sun will be beating down relentlessly all day. If you go to Spain with your kids and it happens to rain all week (as happened to my friend) there is little provided in the way of indoors entertainment.
In Ireland, however, right across the country there are entertainment centres to keep the kids amused for hours, such as Funtasia in Bettystown, Co. Meath, the Ark in Dublin, the Waterfront in Belfast — and to the best of my knowledge, the biggest bouncy castle in the world is located in east Galway.
For the adults it’s even easier. Stay somewhere like Kinnitty Castle, with it’s oak-panelled library, leather armchairs and private bar, and you’ll be praying for rain so you can take your ease, hot toddy in hand, at the magnificent, verdant parkland.
Ireland is a remarkably benign country. You won’t get battered into the ground by searing heat in the summertime, and in the winter you’re unlikely to experience anything much below freezing —although if you’re lucky you might get a nice white Christmas. Tornadoes, typhoons and tsunamis are unknown, and the country is as far as you can get from the epicentre of an earthquake. Drought, duststorms, blizzards or searing heat are unknown to us.
The mildness of the climate means there are few nasty surprises waiting for you in the undergrowth — no snakes, poisonous spiders, scorpions or malarial mosquitoes to dine on your nether parts, and there aren’t even that many midges. OK, it rains from time to time, but there are some of the finest pubs and hotels in the world to while away the time until ‘the misht’ clears. S in the meantime you can sit back, enjoy a hot whiskey and warm your feet in front of the turf fire. And, sure, if you’re stuck for conversation, you can always talk about the weather.
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