Extreme weather events recorded in County Cavan
In this week's Times Past column, historian Jonathan Smyth looks at extreme weather events from the past...
Climate change is across all media platforms these days as scientific soothsayers predict unprecedented patterns of extreme weather events, and the decline and eventual extinction of the planet should we not listen to their advice. Extreme weather events are not new, however, an acceleration in the regularity and repetition of such phenomenon is terrifying. Imagine trying to survive through giant rainfalls, a countryside under high floods and in other parts of the world the effects of drought and famine.
After a trawl through old newspapers and books, it was apparent that our ancestors too, experienced some extreme weather events but thankfully they were uncommon occurrences. I would like to acknowledge Martin Maguire who suggested the topic.
Alarming waterspout
The Boston Pilot reported on October 27, 1838, that ‘on Wednesday morning, about 5 o’clock, the village and neighbourhood of Kingscourt, County of Cavan, to the extent of four or five square miles, was visited for upwards of six hours, by a tremendous waterspout, most destructive in its consequences.’ In ‘A Flora of Liverpool’ by T.B. Hall, a reference is made to this event which he described as ‘very alarming.’
The town of Kingscourt, described as a village in The Boston Pilot, being situated on the side of a mountain, with great difficulty stood-up to the ‘overpowering torrent’, which rolled down from the heights with increased forcefulness and several homesteads were deserted becoming ‘prey to the destroying element’.
Cormiscea, the seat of Mr. F. Pratt, was so ‘completely and so suddenly’ overwhelmed, that twenty men were needed, wading knee-deep in water, to keep out the flood from the parlour and drawing-room. Mrs Pratt at great expense to personal safety had rescued some valuable papers which were held in an ‘under apartment’ of the house.
Unfortunately, the greatest loss, however, ‘on this melancholy occasion’, was suffered by the unfortunate farmers, whose ‘flax, hay, and corn were indiscriminately carried by the torrent a distance of several miles’, and ‘swept in one common mass’ into Ballyho Lake.
Big Wind
Witness statements on the Big Wind of 1839 in Cavan, recorded in a volume of Irish Geography from 1989, recalled an oral account from ‘an old man’ who told of fish swept out of Virginia Lake and deposited over fields in Lislea and that ‘large numbers of them were got dead up to a mile away.
Near Edengully National School, Bailieborough, above by the mountains, stood an old building where ‘old Ned Curran’ a night watchman came down the road on his ‘hands and knees’ being unable to stand upright against the tremendous force of the gale.
At Tackney’s brae he met a tall man on a horse, who sat straight in the saddle, something Ned was unable to do on his feet.
Blizzard
Severe snow and heavy blizzards have struck Ireland on various occasions over the past centuries since records began. On November 19-20, 1807, huge blizzards swept Ireland killing many people. On February 16, 1867, The New York Tablet (formerly called The Celt), published by Cootehill lady, Mary Anne Sadlier, also known as Mrs J. Sadlier, recorded a severe weather event on January 12th, when in the depth of a hurricane Paddy Cooney of Carrickacrummin, went to find his son, ‘who he rashly sent to Cootehill’ a journey of some seven miles that morning.
Worried for his son’s safety, he braved the ‘storm and tempest’ and crossing over the mountain at Tievenanass he ‘rescued a man from a snow rath’, saving his life, he took him in a ‘half-stupefied state’ to a neighbour’s house. Mr Cooney little imagined what fate would befall himself, for according to the paper, a few minutes later he would ‘perish for want of assistance’ which he so ‘cheerfully and charitably afforded’ to another. Having ‘scarcely’ gone 200 perches from the house, the constant showers and driving snow blinded his vision causing him to leave the road and wander the ‘uninhabited mountain’ of Cornasaus. Two days later, following an intensive search, he was discovered dead at the back of a ditch.
Tober Village
In 1985, a letter from Mrs Glanfield of Vancouver, Canada, appeared in The Anglo-Celt when she came to Cavan in search of the village of Tober in the parish of Killinagh, near Blacklion. She soon discovered that the village no longer existed, even though once having its own church, a cornmill, cooper, a blacksmith, shoemaker and ‘sheebeens’ having held its own fairs up to the 1850s. Tradition has it that during the 1840s, the parish priest, Fr Hugh De-Lacy set-up a famine kitchen and cooked porridge near ‘Tober well’, a site from where the village got its name.
Tober ceased as a community when rainfall of unparalleled proportions flooded the nearby river causing the overflow to wash away homes in 1861. During her visit, Mrs Glanfield saw the ruins of her ancestral home at Tober, identified by Luke McGovern of Dowra. As Mark Twain once said, ‘climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.’
EARTHQUAKE NEAR CAVAN!
A letter to the Editor in this paper on February 18, 1847, brought to attention an ‘earthquake’ close to the Green Lake, Cavan Town. The letter stated:
Sir - Having heard on last Sunday evening that one of those phenomena called ‘earthquakes’ had occurred at one of the beautiful lakes surrounding this town, I walked out there with a friend to satisfy my curiosity; and as I presume that the shock it created was not felt to such an extent in Cavan as to cause your own reporter to repair to the scene, I will endeavour to give you some account of it.
The spot where the earthquake took place is northwest of the Green-Lake, just where the Ballinagh road passes it by. Indeed, it was not only a tremor of the earth, but a great breach herein; for about half a rood of the verdant sward that surrounds the Lake (and from which, I suppose it derives its name) separated from the adjoining ground, causing the water to flow around it, and thereby forming a small island in the Lake. But this was not all, for about forty yards of the road lately raised and repaired under the Labour Rate Act fell in. Fortunately, it was at night this extraordinary change happened, and no further injury beyond what I have stated has resulted from it...
I remain, Sir, respectfully yours, etc …
YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY: