When a Category Three hurricane struck Ireland in 1839

The ‘Night of the Big Wind’ is still remembered all over Ireland

Ireland has suffered one major hurricane in the last few centuries. ‘The Night of the Big Wind’  (in Irish : Oídhche na Gaoithe Móire) was a massive hurricane that swept over Ireland on the night of January 6th 1839.

Up to 300 people died in Ireland tens of thousands were left homeless and winds reached well over 115 miles per hour,a category 3 hurricane. 25 per cent of the houses in Dublin were destroyed and 42 ships were destroyed.

The storm began after a period of very odd Irish weather. A heavy snowstorm on January 5th was followed by a balmy sunny day, almost unheard of for that time of year.

Some people claimed the temperature reached as high as 75 degrees and the heavy snow of January 5th totally melted.

During daytime on Janury 6th a deep Atlantic low pressure system began moving across Ireland where it collided with the warm front.

The first news of bad weather was reported in County Mayo. The steeple at the Church of Ireland  in Castlebar church was blown down.

As the evening wore on the winds began to howl and soon reached hurricane force.
The arrival of the  hurricane force winds would never be forgotten by those who remembered it.

The Dublin Evening Post described its arrival with the following: “about half past ten it rose into a high gale, which continued to increase in fury until after midnight, when it blew a most fearful and destructive tempest”.

The experience in Kilbeggan, Co Westmeath was described with the words "“there was at first a rumbling noise, like thunder, heard, which was followed by a rushing blast of wind, which swept across the town like a tornado, and shook the houses so much that the glass and delft were thrown from the shelves. Those who were in bed hastily jumped up and dressed them selves.

Many ran out of their houses into the fields and gardens, and in several instances where the inmates fled, the houses were soon after levelled to the ground.”

In Dublin, crowds flocked to the old Parliament House in College Green to hide under the portico, believing it one of the few places strong enough to withstand the storm.

Along with the wind there were fears in Dublin that the city would be engulfed in fire like the Great Fire in London, as chimneys collapsed and buildings caught fire. In most townlands in Ireland there were infernos as thatched roofs were swept off and caught fire in the hearths below. People of all classes where killed, and houses belonging to all classes damaged or destroyed.

The Dublin Evening Post ultimately summed up the night of the big wind with the following:

“Every field, every town, every village in Ireland, have felt its dire effects. The damage, which it has done, is almost beyond calculation. Several hundreds of thousands of trees have been levelled to the ground. More than half a century must elapse, before Ireland, in this regard, presents the appearance she did last summer. The loss of farming stock, of all kinds, has been terrible; many hundreds of cattle have had to be killed.

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Nster.com