A day in the life of Valentia Observatory

VALENTIA Island’s association with meteorology began in 1860, when Admiral FitzRoy, who was head of the Meteorological Committee of the (British) Board of Trade made arrangements for regular communication, by telegraph, of meteorological observations from 15 land stations in Britain and Ireland.

Valentia was chosen as one of those stations because the island already had a telegraphic link to London to service the trans-Atlantic cable.

The importance of Valentia as a location for meteorological observations was recognised immediately, it being situated in the path of most of the weather systems coming from the Atlantic.

In 1865 the British government decided to set up observatories with self recording instruments, at seven locations including Valentia.

The Observatory at Valentia was set up by the Meteorological Committee. It was funded by them and manned by their own staff. It was set up in a house leased from the Knight of Kerry at the Revenue on Valentia Island, in August 1868.

The first recording instruments to be installed – all state of the art at the time – were an Adie Photographic Barograph and Thermograph and the Robinson Beckley Anemograph. The station was supplied with the Beckley Rain Recorder in 1869 and with the Campbell-Stokes Sunshine Recorder in 1879. These original instruments are now all on display in the Observatory museum.

The Observatory remained on the Island until March 1892, when it was transferred to its present location just outside Cahersiveen.

The main Observatory building – Westwood House – and was built, in 1866, by a Captain Needham, the local agent for Trinity College, which had major land holdings in the area.

The British Met Office continued to staff and fund the Observatory until December 1936 when the Irish Meteorological Service was set up. Many of the staff employed by the British Meteorological Office at the Observatory transferred to Met Eireann

Since the creation of Irish Meteorological Service, the work of the Observatory has greatly expanded and it has always been equipped with the most technologically advanced equipment and instrumentation available.

Valentia Observatory is well known and very highly regarded by the scientific community. As well as fulfilling its role within Met Éireann it is involved in many projects with other scientific bodies in Ireland and abroad.

Mike Gill of Met Éireann explains how weather data collected on site is collated and transformed into easily understandable and up to date weather maps.

(Above) A less frequently seen view of the main Valentia Observatory building which is located just a kilometre from Cahersiveen.

(Left) Mike Gill of the Irish Meteorological Service gives a tour of the observatory’s modern facilities in the weather centre’s main complex.

One of the latest additions on site is this spectrophotometer that, among other things, can measure ozone and solar radiation levels.

Some of the original measurement devices used at Valentia on display in the Observatory’s museum

A small mobile measurement device is set up and placed on the grounds of Valentia Observatory by Mike Gill of Met Eireann.

(Above and below) Two of the many weather measurement stations on the site.