True to form, everyone has forgotten the wonderful late Spring and early Summer we enjoyed this May and June.
We walked under sunny dry cloudless skies for six weeks, but a fortnight of sodden July has erased from our brains all we then enjoyed.
The rains came exactly when they always do: just as festival season hit Galway.
Humid damp air cooks under morning hot sunshine, conjuring towering thunderclouds by midday.
We console ourselves with "We don't live here for the weather!" but that’s becoming less true with each warming year.
I’ve lived in San Francisco and Melbourne, yet take the weather of the West of Ireland weather every time.
Wise words were spoken to me during a deluge decades ago.
October late evening, the rain roaring sideways up Dominick Street, I sought shelter in a shop porch opposite the Left Bank Café.
Crammed in beside me, an old bloke (think: Del Boy’s’s Uncle Albert) was lifting his head and smiling like he’d just picked the winner.
Together we watched as blankets of water ripped off the Atlantic Ocean, powered up Dominick Street, torrents of insistent swirls, dancing silver under the street lights.
“Tell me, without this weather would we lose the place we love?”
Impressed by his sensing I love it here, I stared into his eyes with a look that said
“Do what? Go on then, I’ve bitten.”
We turned our heads together, back out into the rampant bleakness;
both knowing well that this was not a passing shower;
that we would have to brave it and deal with the consequences.
Turning to me one again, Shorty White Hair threw back his old head and laughed maniacally.
“God’s gift to Ireland!” he screamed above the clamour of the storm. “God’s gift, the RRRAAaaaiiin!” he cheered.
Not really in the mood for theological debate, I resisted the urge to reply
“Well ta very much, God!”
instead settling for the more respectful:
“How’s that then?”
Delighted, he launched into his spiel, which was, I must admit, entrancing.
“Without the rain there’d be a hotel on every clifftop. Without the rain there’d be caravans and mobile homes as far as you can see. Without the rain there’d be millions of tourists here every month of the year and the farmers would go broke and sell up to build more hotels and the land would be gone and the space would be filled. Without the rain everything you love about Ireland would be gone.”
Silence fell between us.
Somehow this stranger could not have summed up better what I love about the West of Ireland. Almost beyond the compassion, warmth and wit of the people, I adore the pace and space of the West.
Step out of your shower in Florida in July and you instantly need another shower. The towel won’t take the water off you.
Humidity sucks, but not water from skin. Sleepless nights, above the sheets, scared to move an inch to break sweat.
Horrible.
No thanks.
In Rome they're telling people to stay indoors.
In Greece; Canada; everywhere, it burns wild and terrifying.
I’ve seen a forest of blue gums with their bases intact and untouched, their canopy still alive with green leaves, with all between scorched charcoal black.
The fire moved so fast it didn't have time to take the tops and bottoms of the trees.
70 mph fireballs racing from each exploding eucalyptus to the next.
No thanks.
When I lived in the Redwood Empire, it stopped raining in May, and you most likely wouldn’t catch a drop ’til mid-November.
By that time, frazzled beyond reason, I was that eedjit dancing with joy in the downpour in the library car park.
Irish weather is terrible, and as Autumn already threatens, consider this: wherever you live in Connacht, you’re never more than 20 minutes from somewhere stunningly beautiful.
If you step out of your bus or car and stand in the middle of nowhere for 15 minutes, you’ll be giving thanks, feeling privileged to live in this extraordinary part of the planet.
We have so much empty space. Wildflower meadows pop up in vacant lots between launderettes and pubs on Irish streets.
Here in North Mayo, I can walk for hours without the sound of distant traffic. I lie in my bed in the morning and listen to plaintiff donkey brays crashing through the air, pheasants gawaaaaghrrrk-ing.
Our mountain sides are empty.
Our clifftops are grassy, lined with wild orchids.
At night, in our rare and splendid area of darkness, we can see the Milky Way in all its glory.
During the day we can walk among wildlife, dreaming for a moment we are the sole representatives of the human race.
Yes, we have gorse and bog fires, but they don't outrun a speeding car.
Our land stays still; no significant tectonics.
The odd mudslide, once a year or so.
Flooding, yes, increasingly.
If I ever buy a house, it’ll be on a hill.
Flying low over Ireland, you fully appreciate how this nation is a shcattering of green bumps and lumps, sticking out of vast and many puddles.
We have windstorms in winter but little snow, and over 300 days a year between 10C and 20C.
I’ll take that.
I’ll take it all, with clifftops clear of hotels.
©Charlie Adley
21.07.2023.
909 words
