When Storm Ernesto was forecast to cross over Ireland this week, I wondered how the nation would react to this wet and potentially dangerous slap in the face right at the tail end of summer. I imagined some folks would cry: “We didn’t deserve this after the summer we’ve had!” But there is always someone worse off than you. An Irish friend got married during a rip-roaring thunderstorm in the middle of June. The train on her dress billowed as she descended the steps of the church. We knew what was coming, and fled indoors. But the bride’s mother said, “Isn’t it marvellous? You can’t defy the gods!” She bowed before the matrimonial meteorological majesty. The lesson? Be a June bride in Ireland at your peril. Accept it. The Child of Prague won’t help you here.
I emigrated to the US in part because of the weather. At least, that’s what I told myself. I looked up at the grey sky one day as I walked outside my house in the Liberties and thought, ‘I can’t do this any more’. I think – with the benefit of more than a decade of hindsight – that I was scapegoating the much-maligned Irish weather. And I don’t think I’m the only one. The weather became an avatar for my restlessness, sense of adventure and misadventure, professional ambition and all the other false idols we believe are important in our 30s and 40s. So I moved to New York in search of blue skies, shiny silver skyscrapers and the greenback. And today? I yearn to return to be with my friends and family – my community – but also because of the weather.
We Irish have a complicated relationship with our unpredictable, often capricious, Irish climate. It’s a gaslighting frenemy whose mood can change on a dime. Feeling safe, warm and happy? You’d better watch out. You’re going to get drenched on your way to that summer barbecue. It’s a peculiarly Irish obsession: “It’s threatening to rain.” Except it’s not about us. Don’t we know where we are? We live on an island on the northwest tip of Europe where the Gulf Stream brings us temperate weather (although, I’m sorry to say, climate change may soon spell even more rain in winter and, for better or for worse, less rain in summer).
Like the Taranis-invoking mother of the bride, let’s not expect June to slavishly follow the changing of the seasons. This year, the polar-front jet stream put the kibosh on the chances of that happening. It’s been like this for as long as I can remember: I recall being stuck in traffic on the 14A bus in Rathmines on my way home from school. As I was worrying about my Leaving Cert and probably listening to Cloudbusting by Kate Bush on my Walkman, a woman next to me tapped the window pane angrily and said, “Look at it – just look at it!” (I still like to tap window panes and say, “Look at it – just look at it!” when it rains.) It’s folly to take a sudden turn in the weather personally, as if we had any control over it.
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The weather is, indeed, tricky to predict. But I appreciate the sun all the more when it comes out. I had a memorable road trip to Ballybunion, Co Kerry in June 2019 with my friend Daisy Cummins, also known as Abby Green, the romance novelist. We named our adventure “The Mary Cummins Road Trip” after her late mother, who was part of that first, important wave of Irish Times feminist journalists. During that week, the sky was as blue as Mary Cummins’s signature eyeshadow. We ate chips, 99s and lolled about in the sun like it was 1984. I even went swimming sans vêtements on Banna Strand. Poor Daisy had to avert her eyes! I’m sure she thought this was just the worst effect of climate change.
This temperamental and, sometimes, benevolent overlord also brings us together. Rich or poor, conservative or liberal, no one can escape. We all have that in common. Whether you live in a two-up, two-down or in a country house overlooking a vast estate, if you’re not in the Hamptons or Cote d’Azur, you get soaked like everyone else. It’s also a great escape. Don’t want someone talking your head off about property prices again? Pivot to, “Miserable out, isn’t it?” before running home before you get rained on. One fluffy cloud minding its own business in a blue sky is all the excuse you need to amscray, given that we often get all four seasons in one day.
Our response to the weather, particularly in summer, can also accurately forecast our mood or even our state of mind. My old friend, Calodagh McCumiskey, who works in corporate wellbeing, says her late father used to regularly ask her about the weather. It would befuddle her until, years after he had passed away, she realised that he was actually asking her how she was doing. The weather was merely a proxy. “In hindsight, I understood what dad was really asking,” Calodagh says. “If you ask someone how they are – they’ll most often say, ‘I’m fine.’ But if you ask them how the weather is, their answer will give a picture of how they are really feeling.”
Her father, perhaps not so coincidentally, was Bill McCumiskey, the first director general of the Environmental Protection Agency. Climate change was smack in his wheelhouse. For what it’s worth, I remember him as a cheerful, calming presence, and would vote him the gentleman most likely to smile his way through Storm Ernesto with gracious equanimity. If only we could all embody such acceptance. Having experienced hot-as-hell summers abroad – it’s 44 degrees right now in Palm Springs, California, one of my favourite winter getaways – I have a new appreciation of summer in Ireland. I love all of it. The sun. The rain. I actually now look forward to grey Scrabble days (get back to me in winter).
I decided to test Bill’s theory. Last week, I asked a Dublin taxi driver what he thought of the summer so far. “Not much,” he said. “I’m going to the Canaries at the end of September so I’m glad I have something to look forward to.” His Waterford Crystal goblet was both half empty and half full. While ambling along Marine Parade in Sandycove on Tuesday, my tennis coach whizzed by on his bike in pink shorts and a baseball cap. What did you think of the weather this summer, Harry? “It was confusing,” he said. He’s right. The Irish weather prides itself on being an enigmatic beast, and wishes to remain so. We are surrounded by it, but we shall never become fully acquainted with it.
But is our “bad” weather really that bad? New York reaches frequent highs of 31 degrees in August. It always feels a few degrees hotter due to the humidity and heat radiating from the asphalt. If you go outside, you need to shower. It’s impossible for me to play sports unless I’m up at 6am. And there is the constant spectre of skin cancer hiding in plain sight. August in Ireland, on the other hand, is 20 degrees with wind and showers to keep us on our toes – an absolute luxury in comparison. There’s no better place in the world than Ireland when the sun shines. I will never complain about the Irish weather again.
Pity those Irish tourists in Spain in July who were warned to stay in their hotel due to a heatwave topping 40 degrees. I spent four days in the quaint fishing village of Santa Margherita on the Italian Riviera. The sea was 24 degrees, but I did not last more than 15 minutes before melting. Sally O’Brien would have fried and scrambled me on the stones, and had me for breakfast. In Ireland, by contrast, I spent four hours one day in Brittas Bay and four days on Curracloe Beach without a care in the world. I even bought a bucket and spade. A slathering of Factor 50 and I was grand. I also played tennis three times a week in Dublin at midday, no less. The wind and sprinkles of rain only upped the ante for my games.
August is, arguably, the best time to swim in the Irish Sea. It’s a degree or two warmer than June (it topped 15.9 degrees last year). Last Sunday, myself and two friends –- who I’ve known since we danced to the original Cruel Summer by Bananarama at Wesley Disco in the 1980s – braved the nostalgia and pebbles on Killiney Beach. I came here as a kid in my family’s Ford Cortina. As we wriggled out of our clothes, my pals pulled wetsuits out of their bags. “Ah, c’mon,” I said. I had only brought togs in my knapsack. And then I remembered: I too had worn a wetsuit at the Clontarf Baths two summers ago. What was I complaining about? I was and will forever be that common saltwater seal, squawking and splashing my way through another chilly Irish summer.