Week 16 - ‘Storms’
Like all of us in this storm between birth and death, I can wreak no great changes on the world, only small changes for the better, I hope, in the lives of those I love. Dean Koontz
I researched to find the biggest storms in the United Kingdom and came across the Night of the Big Wind, in 1839. Wikipedia told me it was: the most severe windstorm to hit Ireland in recent centuries, with hurricane-force winds gusting over 190 km per hour. The European windstorm swept across Ireland killing between 250 and 300 people and rendering hundreds of thousands of homes uninhabitable and causing severe damage to properties.
The storm developed after a period of unusual weather. Heavy snow, rare in Ireland, fell across the country on the night of 5 January, which was replaced on the morning of 6 January by an Atlantic warm front, which brought a period of complete calm with dense, motionless, cloud cover. Through the day, temperatures rose well above their seasonal average, resulting in rapid melting of the snow.
Later, on 6 January, a deep Atlantic depression began to move towards Ireland, forming a cold front when it collided with the warm air over land, bringing strong winds and heavy rain. First reports of stormy weather came from western County Mayo around noon, and the storm moved very slowly across the island through the day, gathering strength as it moved.
By midnight the winds reached hurricane force. Contemporary accounts of damage indicate that the Night of the Big Wind was the most severe storm to affect Ireland for many centuries. Severe property damage was caused. Between a fifth and a quarter of all houses in Dublin suffered damage ranging from broken windows to complete destruction. Much of the inland damage was caused by a storm surge that drew large quantities of seawater inland, resulting in widespread flooding
The Night of the Big Wind became part of Irish folk tradition. Irish folklore held that Judgment Day would occur on the Feast of the Epiphany, 6 January (Old Christmas day). Such a severe storm led many to believe that the end of the world was at hand. Another belief was that the storm brought the end of the ‘Fairies’ as they were also blown away and not heard singing again.
The Old-Age Pensions Act 1908 introduced pensions for over-70s, but many Irish Catholics prior to the Registration of Births and Deaths (Ireland) Act, 1863 had no birth registration. One of the questions used to establish proof of age was whether the applicant remembered the Night of the Big Wind.
A popular story holds that the storm inspired the Director of Armagh Observatory, the Reverend Romney Robinson, to develop the cup-anemometer, which remains the commonly used wind measuring device today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Big_Wind
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Okay so I had found my big storm – now I needed to relate it to my ancestors. I researched further looking for any comment on its effect in Poyntzpass, County Down in the North of Ireland, where my Gt Gt Grandmother lived with her parents and siblings at the time.
Sure enough, there was an article The Night of the Big Wind written by Frank Watters. He claimed that by all accounts it was the most extreme storm in the last 500 years. The storm became a landmark in time from which other events were dated. People would say that ‘such and such’ happened before or after ‘The Big Wind’ commonly pronounced ‘Wine’.
The population of Ireland would have been about 8 million then, with most people living in the country. Their farmhouses were scattered through fields all over the countryside. The houses were mud-walled and thatched with straw or rushes tied down with hand twisted straw ropes. Many lived in constant poverty with a state of near-famine being the norm.
The Big Wind tore off slate roofing, chimneys, church spires, and thatched rooves fell in. This started fires in nearly every town and village as the main means of fuel was turf and tallow candles and rushlights. Whole rows of thatched houses burnt down. Hay, flax, and corn stacks and even some hens were blown away. People lost their savings and valuables as well as any weapons they had hidden in their thatched rooves.
Ships were driven onto the land and dead bodies floated in with the tide. Large trees of up to 200years old were torn out of the ground.
People sought shelter in sheughs (ditches) and behind banks. Reference: http://www.poyntzpass.co.uk/Before_I_Forget/1994_No_7/The_Night_of_the_Big_Wind.pdf
Then I remembered another possible relevant source - an ancestor’s diary. So I checked again and -
Yes, there was mention of the storm on 06 January 1839. The family seems to have fared okay apart from the farm and some buildings.
Copy of Excerpt from the diary of John Shanks, my 3rdgreat grandfather’s brother.
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