Appeal for information 10 years after man’s murder
Met Eireann’s Gerald Fleming MET Eireann forced a change in the names of several storms as suggestions from British forecasters were too Irish, not Irish enough and even too similar to a country singer.
Emails between the service and its UK counterpart, the Met Office, reveal differences over how the yearly list of weather events is decided.
The correspondence, released under Freedom of Information laws, shows Irish meteorologists took issue with a British suggestion that a storm be called Patrick.
Gerald Fleming, who recently stood down as the country’s chief forecaster, wrote: “The name ‘Patrick’ is a bit clicheirish [and also of course closely associated with a specific date, March 17] so suggest Peter or Paul instead here?”
Last August, the Met Office contacted him with a suggested list of names for the latest storm season.
It had filtered out “sensitive/inappropriate names” and pointed out “we probably Andrew Burns need to add a Welsh name”. Mr Fleming suggested Dylan, but went on: “Or is it too familiar [Bob Dylan] or too hackneyed [Dylan Thomas]. Another possibility is Rhiannon [and we are probably unlikely to get to “R”].
He added: “Could I also suggest a bit more Irish flavour.”
The forecaster, known as the winking weatherman for his trademark sign off during decades of TV reports, asked for Daniel to be changed to Donal, Finn to Fionn and Miranda to Maeve.
He also said Nathan should be changed to Niall.
Mr Fleming emailed: “We have a big C&W star in Ireland called Nathan Carter, so best to avoid this.
“Certain sections of our media seem unnaturally interested in how many names ‘we’ got as opposed to how many
‘they’ got in’. I never encourage that thinking GARDAI today marked the 10th anniversary of a man’s murder to make a fresh appeal for information.
On February 12, 2008, Andrew Burns was killed at Donnyloop, Castlefin, Co Donegal.
Between 7.05pm and 7.15pm a number of young people heard and just say the list is agreed – which is no more than the truth!”
The changes caused the UK forecasters some pronunciation difficulties. A Met Office official asked: “Is Fionn [pronounced] Fee-on or still FINN? “Would it be NEE-UL, or NYE-UL, as I know both variants for Niall?”
Both agencies agreed to run a pilot scheme in 2015 for naming storms, similar to a system used in the US. It was suggested Abigail be the first named storm this side of the Atlantic because the US “started with boys this year”.
Mr Fleming wrote: “Yes, fine with Abigail, and good to put the females out front.”
The Met Office trawled through hundreds of names suggested in a public consultation. An internal Met Eireann note described names suggested by Irish weather watchers as “very eclectic”. gunshots and moments later saw Mr Burns fatally wounded.
A man was spotted running towards the nearby church car park. Then two cars were seen leaving the town, travelling back to Clady, Co Tyrone.
One of these vehicles is described as a black car or dark red in colour, while the second Mr Fleming said: “We can safely reject ‘Tayto’,‘tweedledum’, ‘Tweedledee’, ‘Voldemort’, and others.
“Godot would be interesting. How long would we have to wait?”
Delays meant the original announcement of the first storm name list in October 2015 was put back from a Monday to a Tuesday, which Mr Fleming told the Met Office suited him better.
He wrote: “I can usually do without early morning calls for interviews from radio stations.
“And then there is a rugby match on Sunday which might provoke some mild celebrations [oops, sorry, don’t mention the rugby].”
By January last year, the Met Office suggested a “storm-naming discussion” at a European “storms meeting”.
Mr Fleming said he had two staff going to the conference and if there was to be a storm-naming session he “would probably look at getting either myself or Evelyn over as well.” was silver. In 2012 Martin Kelly, from Strabane, Co Tyrone, was jailed for life for the murder which was linked to the dissident republican group Oglaigh na heireann.
A Garda spokesman said: “We believe a number of people were involved in this occurrence.
“Officers are grateful for all the witnesses that have come forward and made statements however we believe there are still people who have information which may assist with the investigation.
“Gardai wish to appeal for anyone with information no matter how insignificant it may seem to come forward to assist with this investigation.”