By Charlotte Murphy
The unusually heavy rain earlier this year has led to fears (yet again) of a looming fodder shortage this summer, while yields of potatoes and other vegetables are expected to be very poor. While this has led to speculation that it is linked to climate change, such extreme weather events were not unusual in years gone by.
The Annals of Connacht were compiled between 1224 and 1562 and, while most of the material deals with kings and their wars, there are passing references to weather events that arrested the attention of the scribes. Because Ireland is a relatively small island, the writers generally dealt with the country as a whole and did not confine themselves exclusively to weather events in Connacht.
In 1308 there was ‘a fiery thunderbolt’ which fell ‘from heaven on the Friars’ convent at Roscommon and broke it, on the night of St Stephen after Great Christmas’. Great Christmas was 25 December, while Little Christmas was the feast of the Epiphany, 6 January. The Easter of that same year was celebrated during the month of March and it was accompanied by ‘very stormy weather’, which resulted in the destruction of ‘men and beasts’.
Cattle were one of the chief sources of food at this time and therefore an entry in 1324 gives a chilling picture of the state of the country: ‘The same cattle-plague was in all Ireland this year. It was called the Mael Domnaig.’ Unfortunately, this plague continued to afflict the country during the following year of 1325. There was little respite to be enjoyed, and only three years later the Annals reported: ‘Much thunder and lightning this year [1328] whereby much of the fruit and produce of all Ireland was ruined, and the corn grew up white and blind’. This inclement weather possibly gave rise to an increase in what is assumed to be heavy colds and influenza: ‘A general visitation of the sickness called slaedan, throughout Ireland. It lasted three or four days with each person whom it attacked, and it was next to death for him.’ The troubles of the people were not over for that year, however: ‘A great intolerable wind this summer, with scarcity of food and clothing’. Even the little birds suffered under extreme weather; in 1335 it was reported that there was heavy snow in the spring ‘which killed most of the small birds of all Ireland’.
‘Nearly all the sheep in Ireland died this year [1338]’, but no reason is suggested. ‘The cattle and winter grass suffered much from frost and snow, which lasted from the end of the first fortnight in Winter into the spring.’ Winter was considered to begin on 1 November and therefore the frost and snow would have begun around 14 November and lasted until at least 1 February, which was celebrated as the first day of spring. ‘A heavy shower fell in Carbury in the summer [1358], each hailstone thereof fully as big as a crab-apple.’ This strange event was followed in 1363 by another frightening experience: ‘A great wind this year, which wrecked churches and houses and sank many ships and boats’. The houses of the poor were constructed of timber or wattle and daub and had thatched roofs, and so could be destroyed by a strong wind. Ships and boats were also at the mercy of the weather, as were stone churches with thatched roofs: another ‘very great wind this year [1374] which wrecked many churches’.
The summer and autumn of 1419 were extremely hot; people had never experienced such ‘burning heat’. ‘The waters, all but a few ebbed away; the leaves and grass withered; openings appeared in the surface of the ground. Throughout this half year there was living fire in the earth, which continued to bear its fruits long afterwards, and there was a great yield of every fruit and crop this year.’
The weather was extremely cold during the winter of 1434. It was reported that men with laden horses walked on the biggest lakes of Ireland. The frost lasted from 29 November until after 15 February and during these months the ground was not worked. The spring and summer of 1462 were also very cold, resulting in food shortages. In 1471 the coming of summer brought more destruction of crops: ‘Showers of hail fell each side of Beltaine [1 May], with lightning and thunder, destroying much blossom and beans and fruits in all parts of Ireland where they fell. One of these showers, in the east had stones two or three inches long, which made large wounds on the people they struck …’ There was also very heavy flooding. A description of the (Cistercian) monastery of Boyle paints a vivid picture of the extreme weather. It was written that a boat could have floated over the floor of the great church. There were other remarkable events during this year: ‘the nut-trees blossomed about the autumnal festival of Mary [Our Lady’s feast on 15 August]’ and ‘seed sown on Saturday showed green on Monday’.
The year 1478 was described as a hard one: ‘A mighty wind rose on the eve of the Epiphany [5 January], and this was a night of destruction for all owing to the number of men, cattle, trees, lake and land buildings, which it laid low throughout Ireland. It broke nine score [180] glazed windows in Dublin.’ A stormy, wet summer was reported during 1519, and then it seemed to turn hard and cold with little growth. There were many storms at the beginning of 1524, leading to the destruction of a great number of cattle, and in 1528 ‘a great wind blew on the Friday before Christmas. It felled many trees and tumbled many wooden and stone buildings all over Ireland and especially it demolished the convent-house at Donegal.’ The beginning of 1541 had such hard frost and heavy snows that no ploughing or general farm work could be done.
The occasional extreme weather conditions made life hard for the people of the country. Animals and crops were threatened, thus creating famines, since large-scale importation of food was not an option in medieval Ireland. The impact of destructive weather was enormous and unforgiving during the years dealt with in the Annals of Connacht, and we are given a glimpse into the frightening yet intangible reality of the weather through which our ancestors lived.
Charlotte Murphy is an English and History teacher, with a Ph.D in History from UCC.
Further reading
A.M. Freeman (ed.), Annála Connacht: The Annals of Connacht (AD 1224–1544) (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1996).