There was a fine summer in Co Kerry in 1568. We know this from an account of the Siege of Lixnaw recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters: "Intense heat of the air, sultriness and parching drought prevailed, so that people and cattle were obliged to drink the brackish water of the river in consequence of the intensity of the drought and the oppressiveness of the thirst."
Now perhaps the most intriguing question raised by this excerpt is why anyone should wish to lay siege to the little village of Lixnaw. Unsympathetic souls, indeed, might also wonder why the inhabitants might feel they should defend it. The episode must be assumed, however, to be connected to the Elizabethan subjugation of Munster, and indeed of Ireland in general, which was at its peak around then.
But the excerpt is also illustrative of the information about contemporary climate to be gleaned from the historical annals on which much of our knowledge of the past is based. They contain frequent references to the weather insofar as it affected the activities of the chief protagonists and the outcome of events.
Ian Cantwell has studied many of these documents, and some time ago presented a selection of his meteorological findings at a conference in Galway.
Giraldus Cambrensis provides a summary of our climate that is as valid today as when this distinguished visitor wrote it in the 12th century: "For this country more than others suffers from storms of wind and rain. What is born and comes forth in the spring, and is nourished in the summer and advanced, can scarcely be reaped in the harvest because of the unceasing rain."
The storms sometimes had quite nasty consequences. In 1224, according to the Annals of Clonmacnoise Magnus McMurtagh met his untimely end in Derry: "And immediately there arose a great blast of wind which fell down the house, whereof one part fell on the said Magnus and did put the top of his head through his brains to his very neck and caused his neck to sink into his breast, and strucken dead."
But perhaps the most intriguing happening recorded was that on February 10th, 1173, when Murray O'Coffey, Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, expired: "The dark night was illuminated from midnight to daybreak, and the people thought the neighbouring parts of the world, which were visible, were in a blaze of light; the likeness of a large globe of fire arose over the town and moved in a south-easterly direction, and the people rose from their beds imagining it was daylight."
Answers on a postcard, please.