Where the Shannon enters Lough Ree sits the silent Lough Ree power station, looming over both Lanesborough and its companion across the bridge, Ballyleague.
A few miles northwest of Ballyleague in the Roscommon townland of Gortgallon, and with the distinctive chimney of the power station in the distance, a group of four houses also sit without power, and have done since Storm Éowyn.
In one of them, a bungalow, lives Pat McCormack (74), a retired postman, and his wife, Rita. They, like thousands of others around the country, have been without power since the storm hit on January 24th.
As their water is also dependent on electricity, they have also had to buy bottled water in Lanesborough since.
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“We were without the phones for the first four or five days too,” said Mr McCormack.
Thankfully they have a gas hob on which they can boil a kettle, a stove in the kitchen, and their son, Alan, supplied them with a generator.
Unfortunately, cooking is not really an option. “We’ve been eating sandwiches mostly, I do go into Adie’s [a pub in Lanesborough] for the odd dinner and bring it down here,” said Mr McCormack.
As a sufferer of COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), the lack of power has brought added challenges for Mr McCormack, especially at night. “Getting up at night with the flashlight, it’s not ideal. One night I knocked the lamp under the bed and couldn’t find it,” he said.
Next door to the couple lives their son, Fintan, in Mr McCormack’s late mother’s house, which is 150 years old, but due to the cold he has had to stay with his parents since the storm.
Further along the road lives Maura McCormack (76), wife of the late Brian, who was a brother of Mr McCormack’s, and who worked in the power station for almost 40 years.
“Wires have been down in my garden since the storm. My house is like an iceberg, it’s freezing, the houses have gone so cold at this stage,” said Ms McCormack.
The absence of power and running water has been very challenging for her too. “I put on extra clothes, Pat has the generator, so I fill a hot water bottle or two,” she said.
Across the Shannon in Rathcline there has been extensive damage to trees and forestry, and so too in East Galway in Newbridge.
Video drone footage shows vast tracts of forestry in the Newbridge area flattened as if a tsunami had recently crashed there.
Christy Carty, a pensioner and farmer from the area, has seen the damage first-hand.
“If you go back out the way two or three miles [from the village], you can see all the damage, there are trees down on top of wires,” said Mr Carty.
It is now clear that the national tree crop has been severely impacted by Storm Éowyn, with “significant levels of damage to the forest estate” of Coillte, according to the semi-state body.
“At this stage, it is too early to confirm what the costs will be, but there will be very significant costs running into millions of euro covering everything from emergency clearance to significant areas of windblow across our productive forests, forest parks, biodiversity and recreation areas, along with, in time, the costs of replanting. There are also social and environmental impacts as well,” according to a statement from Coillte.
Back near Lanesborough and Ballyleague, whose names translated to Irish are both “Béal Átha Liag”, meaning the mouth of the ford of flagstones or stepping stones, another small step in the recovery is taking place.
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Mercifully, in the late afternoon, two ESB workers called to Mr McCormack’s house. “Two hours they said it would take [to repair the wires],” a relieved Mr McCormack said.
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