More than 300,000 homes and businesses remained without electricity on Sunday afternoon, and a third of these may stay that way until February. For many of those left without power local hotels, community centres and cafes have been a lifeline.
In Co Clare people in badly-affected rural areas flocked to Ennis where the Old Ground Hotel was one of several venues providing hot food, drinks and – just as important – plug sockets.
It was a similar story at the nearby Temple Gate Hotel, with laptops and phones plugged in at every available power point. Some of the emergency visitors were conducting business meetings. Others were pursuing their studies, among them Alina from Poland who on Saturday was talking over Zoom with a teacher in Warsaw.
“The power is gone in my house outside Clarecastle so I have come here to keep warm and also to carry on with my English classes,” she said. “I have a regular lesson on Saturday afternoons, and I didn’t want to miss it as otherwise I would lose out on my payment, so this was the perfect solution.”
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Fellow students Aoife and Emer came from west Clare to use the facilities as they are working on an assignment for college and “couldn’t afford to waste any time waiting for the power to come back on”.
“We needed to get work done and as both of our houses are so cold without heat we decided to come into Ennis and see if we could find somewhere we could get on with our assignments and stay warm at the same time,” said Aoife. “We will get a bite to eat in the bar afterwards as well so we can make a bit of a day of it.”
This reporter was forced to join them in the Ennis hotel after Friday’s storm cut power to my rural Clare home, while also blowing over a number of trees in the garden and several slates off the roof.
Sunday saw a similar influx of energy-refugees in Ennis, with hotel owner Dermot Kelly saying: “We put a post out letting people know that they can come to the hotel if they want to charge medical devices, phones, laptops or just get a bit of heat and light. Over the past few days we’ve had people from all over the county – from Broadford to Lisseycasey and beyond – and it’s great to know that we have been able to help in some way.”
Martin and Anne Ryan said they found it “a life-saver”.
“Since 3am on Friday morning we’ve had no heating, electricity or wifi, and until yesterday we had no water,” Martin said. “Our house is quite remote, and we were finding it difficult to cope, so we decided to come into Ennis and do a bit of shopping while also getting our devices charged and have something nice to eat.
“I’m hoping things will get back to normal in the coming days, particularly as we have some damage, like fallen trees and a few lost roof tiles, to deal with, but in the meantime being able to come into a hotel and use the facilities for as long as we needed really helped us through – it shows that in hard times people really do pull together to help others.”
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