07 June 2016

The night of the Big Wind

Knowing of my interest in weather, and extreme weather, Brenda Turner drew my attention to an article in Ireland XO News on one of the worst storms ever to hit Ireland, 6–7 January 1839. There was immense damage and considerable loss of life in Ireland, Scotland and north-west England"

"every part of Ireland - every field, every town, every village in Ireland have felt its dire effects, from Galway to Dublin — from the Giant's Causeway to Valencia."
It's around the time my Irish ancestor John Marmon might have left Ireland.

As a former meteorologist I looked for a weather map and found three in an article Barometric pressure during the Irish storm of 6–7 January 1839 at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1256/wea.53.05/pdf which mentioned this storm had the third-lowest barometric pressure recorded in the British Isles.

2 comments:

Lynne Willoughby said...

I heard about this storm on my recent trip toIreland. We were told that the storm destroyed many of the fishing boats on the north and west coasts of the island and was seen as a judgement of things to come. Within the next couple of years there was a failure of the herring fishery as well. They.saw the famine from that perspective And could not get enough food from fishing to provide any relief. I found this an interesting situation which I hadn't heard befor.

Anonymous said...

In 1909 in Ireland an old age pension was instituted. Many people did not have proof of age. If they were alive when the "Big Wind" occurred they qualified. Between the 1901 census and the 1911 census I also read, some people aged more than 10 years.