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Superstition
and The Night of the Big Wind in Carlow
While looking at, reading about it or seeing stories of
the storms that have devastated central America we began
to wonder had anything even remotely like them ever hit
the shores of Ireland. Having studied accounts of the storm
and blizzards of 1947 and lived through it, remembered the
storms that had swept the south of Ireland and England later
along with a few other rough weekends we decided that the
nearest approach we had to a full hurricane was the Night
of The Big Wind on the night of 6th January 1839. We remember
hearing the stories about it when the old age pension was
introduced and 80 year olds were applying for it and they
were asked their date of birth their reply often was "Sure
I'm not able to tell you sir, but I was born either the
night of the big wind or a couple of days before it".
That would make them right for the pension.
As for the night itself, there can be no doubt but that
it was a storm the like of which had never hit our shores
before and certainly never since. The violence of the storm,
its sheer brutality, horrified those who lived through it.
It was likened by old sailors to a 'West Indian hurricane',
a 'tornado' or by others as the end of the world, the timing
of the storm was also seen as significant. Epiphany is a
feast of revelation, the day Christ made his being known
to the world. The night of Epiphany was associated with
death divination. It was time when 'the living felt the
dead very close'.
There is an old Irish saying that on the Twelfth Night the
souls of the dead are thicker than the sand on the sea shore
and are waiting for your prayers to have them released from
purgatory and be allowed into heaven. There is another saying
that on the twelve days of Christmas the gates of heaven
are open and anyone who dies on any of those days goes straight
to heaven. As the storm arrived on the twelfth day it was
said that it was not a storm but the gates of heaven closing,
and the fact that it arrived on Sunday, reaching its height
on Monday, the day which, in gaelic Ireland, was traditionally
associated with the Day of Judgement. All this enormously
enhanced the metaphysical significance of the storm.
If we are to go by extracts from the papers of the time,
there was a strange feeling about the day before the storm.
Sunday morning the 6th January dawned well and the sun rose
over a land which was white from the previous evenings heavy
snowfall. The day was calm, so calm that there was scarcely
a breath of air. As the day wore on the tranquillity of
the afternoon is remembered as being almost unearthly. It
was said that the air was so still that voices could be
heard from people over half a mile away. Nature seemed to
be holding her breath. However, the children of 1839 were
no different to the children of today, that was Little Christmas,
or Nollag na mBan, Women's Christmas. There would have been
a great bustle in the houses that morning as the festive
meal was prepared. Little Christmas was a big social occasion
in those days. Dances and ceilies would have been organised
and people were looking forward to the evening. Perhaps
because it was about Christmas, which was one of the few
times of the year that the ordinary worker took time off
to enjoy a day with his family, but everyone was looking
forward to that night.
It was in the middle of the afternoon that some people began
to notice a change, it began to get close and unseasonably
warm. In the Phoenix Park a rise of 10 F was recorded between
three and nine pm (four hours after sunset). Other weather
signs were also noted as being strange, the movement of
birds, the stillness of the air, the heat became sickly,
yet no one knew that out in the Atlantic a deep depression
was heading for Ireland. It was approaching at speed and
behind it was another bank of chill air. It was about nine
o'clock that a westerly breeze sprang up and was greeted
with a sigh of relief by many people. However, the breeze
continued to freshen and by ten thirty it was blowing a
high gale and continued to still increase in power until
it reached tornado proportions. Depending on the position
of the town or village the tornado, for that was what it
was, struck with varying ferocity, in some towns it approached
with a rumbling sound and in others there was no warning
until the houses commenced to shake with the force of the
wind. People who had gone to bed awoke with the sound and
the vibrations and got out of bed and dressed as quickly
as they could. Most went into the streets or fields to get
away from falling buildings. In the latter part of the midlands
where there was no mountain or hill to break the force of
the wind, roofs were blown off houses and out buildings
were lifted from the ground and in many cases found over
a mile away. Church steeples and high buildings were especially
vulnerable, as were haystacks and stacks of corn. In some
parts wind used to stop for as much as two or three minutes,
then come again with increased force. Many houses lost their
roofs, and once the roof was gone the contents of the rooms
were plucked from their position and it was amazing to see
beds, blankets, pillows and other bedroom articles along
with kitchen tables and chairs floating through the air
like leaves. The storm and the thoughts of what could happen
if the wind caught hold of a person, as it did in several
places, was bad enough but now panic started to set in.
Some people were dashing about waving their beads and shouting
it was the end of the world.
Strange as it may seem in view of all the damage that was
done, Ireland did not get the full force of the storm. As
it approached Ireland it swung slightly north off Donegal
shore and at midnight on the night of January 6/7th 1839
it was centred just of the west of the Scottish Hebrides.
Let us remember that at the time the majority of the population
had very little knowledge of weather fronts or other facts
about atmosphere. While the bare facts of high and low pressure
can denote fine or wet weather fairly accurately there are
times when other factors have to be taken into account.
Sometimes most of those factors are involved in a belt of
pressure, high or low, but when all those elements are involved
arriving together, as in central America tornados, they
can cause devastation, as they did on the night of the 6/7th
January 1839. It is of interest to take a look at a paper
report of the damage done on the town that night. The hurricane
did serious injury in Carlow, though not we have learned,
to the same extent as in other places. The Catholic Cathedral
had one of the pinnacles of the steeple tower blown down.
We have heard of one man, who, on Monday morning, sold ten
shillings worth of slates he had gathered in the streets
where they had been blown from houses.
The upper roofs of the most substantial edifices, and the
walls down to their foundations shook, as if from the effects
of an earthquake,and the greater portion of the people of
the town stayed up all night. In the outer parts of the
town there was a greater number of cabins completely unroofed
and rendered uninhabitable. A great number of the valuable
trees of the demesne of Browns Hill, on Mr. Faulkner's demesne
at Castletown and in other places fell. In short, so much
damage was never heard of in Carlow. It was only the more
terrific accounts from other parts of the country afforded
the people reason to be thankful for their milder lot. Mr.
Thomas Butler had a very narrow escape, having only left
his bedroom when the ceiling was burst in with the weight
of the falling chimneys. One of the back windows of the
club house, sash and all, were forced in, and shattered
to atoms, and it required the combined strength of a number
of men to keep the shutters closed while help was being
procured. One of the ornamental spires that crowned the
beautiful octagonal tower of the Roman Catholic Cathedral
was blown off, and coming with great violence against the
roof of the building, smashed it in, and came down on the
front gallery, shattering it almost to a wreck. The solitary
chimney that topped one of the great towers of the ancient
castle of Carlow, and which had withstood the breezes for
600 years was also blown down. There has been great destruction
of property, especially on the Queens county side of the
Barrow, where corn stacks, cattle, trees, roofs of thatched
houses, and any which have been scattered for miles in all
directions.
This ends the description of Carlow on the Night of The
Big Wind, and goes to prove that we are not entirely safe
from the havoc of a tornado.
Courtesy of Willie White and the Carlow Nationalist
November 2005
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