St Swithin brings the bad news of more rain

Summertime, and St Swithin's uneasy. Fish are jumpin', and the temperature is high. But if there's any truth in the reputation of July 15th, many parts of Ireland could be facing a wet six weeks.

In a millennium-old weather tradition stretching back to the saint's attempted reburial (an attempt supposedly thwarted by his posthumous powers of rain production), yesterday set the tone for the rest of the summer.

As the rhyme puts it: "St Swithin's Day if thou dost rain, for forty days it will remain; St Swithin's Day if thou be fair, for forty days 'twill rain nae mair."

The bad news is that it didst rain, however briefly, in most areas of Ireland yesterday, with only the east coast affected early on, until the showers spreadeth to Munster and the west later.

Today and tomorrow are likely to bring more of the same. And while the current high humidity should then give way to fresher, less muggy weather, the outlook for the Swithin legend remains good, with some rain likely every day for the forecastable future.

The saint's reputation is on shakier ground in his homeland, however.

England continued to bake in a heatwave yesterday, with temperatures and sunshine to rival the Costa del Sol.

But saint or no saint, it will not last, with forecasters predicting the same unsettled conditions in Ireland and Britain later this week.

Yesterday's weather here was good news for religious-minded apple growers, in line with another old tradition that rain on July 15th is caused by saints watering the crops.

The humid weather is bad news for other crop growers, however. Met Éireann warns that current conditions are ideal for the spread of potato blight.

Ireland has missed out on much of the sunshine enjoyed by Britain and the continent because, in the words of one Met spokesman, this country is the "battle-ground" between Atlantic weather systems and the anti-cyclones of the Azores and Scandinavian "highs".

The two highs need to be close together for Ireland to enjoy clear, sunny weather, but the Scandinavian high is too far east at the moment.

The Met spokesman summed up Ireland's general plight: "We're in the wrong place."