Storm Dennis blew up a ‘hooley’ for our Irish trip
fast to each other, danced the conga through the restaurant area, but I think they guessed it wasn’t normal.
Having said that we arrived bang on time and set off to the far west coast of Ireland before 6.30am, hard on the heels of Storm ‘Dennis’, bona fide, storm chasers, and I was keen to see exactly what ‘he’ had done to the landscape. Dennis has a name because ‘he’ is an amber or red storm likely to cause widespread damage and hurt, and ‘he’ became one of the most intense extra-tropical cyclones ever recorded.
The thirteenth named storm of the 2019–20 European windstorm season, Dennis struck Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom at peak intensity less than a week after Storm Ciara, exacerbating the impacts from that storm amidst ongoing flooding.
Driving from Dublin to Galway the flooding became obvious very quickly, and the Shannon was well above its normal level, and the ‘low-lying fields of Athenry’ of Irish song fame, were certainly living up to their name but, we were heading to the far flung wild west of Connemara on the Renvyle Peninsula, and our cottage was a matter of yards from the Atlantic breakers, next stop Boston. At first sight, the sea views were stunning, the sky was blue and everything looked normal, but as we turned onto the coast, the roads were full of seaweed and rounded stones flung up from the sea-bed, and a couple of old tractors, which had been laid to rest many years earlier had taken up like Lazurus and moved to fresh parking spots.
The sky and whitetopped breakers were deceiving as the van door nearly came off in my hand, and the girls, carrying important supplies, whiskey, bacon and lemonade, you know, the vital things, were ferried in doors with Dennisassisted speed.
‘When can we go to the beach’, said Aoife the fiveyear-old, ‘Now’, says I, to a big cheer all round. Kids, as they say, who’d have ‘em?
Our view from the farmhouse door boasted the 14th century Renvyle castle, seen here, home to the legendary ‘Pirate Queen’, Grace O’Malley, and local folk will tell you, there’s many a ‘merrow’ to be seen here; beautiful but dangerous mermaids who, allegedly, can tempt a man into the sea with their enchanting song.
The peninsula, one of Europe’s most westerly was described by Augustus John as ‘the most beautiful landscape in the world’, and it was the inspiration for renowned works by W. B. Yeats, Oliver St. Gogarty and Oscar Wilde.
Thankfully it remains unchanged today, although ‘Dennis’ has made a few minor adjustments. This is where I will let Bria aged nine Joanie’s middle daughter - explain.
You see Bria would like to be a writer...
‘Storms have uncovered trees which have been buried under sand for hundreds of years. We were climbing on some of them because they were still a tiny bit big. In other places, like Dog’s Bay, life buoys were buried, and old sand dunes were washed away. Our dog, Guinness loved it, but he now smells like seaweed. He was scared when he saw a sign that said dogs would be shot. My Mum drove across a beach to an island called Omey; she was very excited because you can only drive across when the tide is out. We had so much fun on the beaches even though it was raining and very windy all week. Niamh my sister had a puddle in her boots because she went too far into the sea above her knee level. I got a little bit wet and Aoife didn’t get wet at all! On the way to Ireland me and Aoife felt sick (I was the one that was actually sick) so I then had a buy a top in the ferry shop. Aoife and Niamh spent their money on bodhrans, the Irish drum that Sean plays in his band. I didn’t spend any money because I was going to spend mine in Dublin, but we didn’t get time after visiting Kilmainham Jail and the Guinness Factory! During the week Sean saw lots of birds, including a shag, a whooper swan and a black-throated diver. He will tell you about them next week.’