"NO matter how bad it is, it could always be worse, and there's always something better around the corner, says weather forecaster Gerry Scully. "We have to be eternal optimists."
His optimism does not extend to the coming week, however, the longest period ahead for which he says forecasts can be reliably made.
"Within the next week, the weather is going to stay on the cold side," he said, "it doesn't look like there is going to be any immediate improvement."
June was one of the wettest on record and the wettest and dullest part of the country to be in this month was, ironically, Rosslare, Co Wexford, in the "sunny south east".
There, rainfall was almost three times normal at 126mm for the month. The sunny southeast also got only 70 per cent of its normal ration of sunshine for the month. In the whole country, only the north and northwest got their normal complement of sunshine.
For most of the country, however, it was a story of cold, wet, dull days. Not, as Mr Scully pointed out, that it rained every day. Rather it was that "there was some very exceptionally heavy rainfall on some days."
Maximum temperatures for the month ranged from 14 C to 18 C, compared to a normal 17 C to 20 C. The northwest recorded the highest temperature of the month, reaching 23.5 C on one glorious day.
If Rosslare was the wettest place in Ireland, Birr, Co Offaly, and Mullingar, Co Westmeath, share the honour of being the coldest.
While temperatures in general were yesterday in the shivery 12 C to 15 C range, today and tomorrow they will be, as Mr Scully puts it with understandable restraint, "creeping up a bit closer to normal".
. All Stena Sea Lynx sailings from Rosslare to Fishguard today have been cancelled. Two superferries will sail to Pembroke at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. because the weather is preventing them from berthing at Fishguard. People whose 9.15 a.m. Sea Lynx sailing is cancelled will be accommodated on the 2 p.m. superferry sailing.