The Big Wind (Oiche na Gaoithe Moire)

A few years ago I read Beatrice Coogan's, The Big Wind: A Novel of Great Famine . Since then I have seen many references to the Big Wind of 1839, which was considered the worst storm in Ireland for at least 300 years.  So many of our ancestral families were in Ireland at that time. Did they huddle in the corners of their dwellings?  Did those dwellings survive?' I don't know that we can ever find the answers, but I would imagine that they never forgot the day for as long as they lived.....

The wind came on 6 Jan 1839. The day before snow had fallen throughout the country.
The morning brought a dense grey cloud cover, and with the stillness of the air the
weather became unseasonably warm. By three in the afternoon the unnatural stillness
was noted. By nine the temperature had dropped and the winds had grown to near gale
force........ The story is best told by the papers of the day.....

Freedman's Journal 8 Jan 1839 pg 2

Connaght Telegraph 9 Jan 1839 pg 3

The article goes on to note that it was the streets where the "humbler" class lived that were the hardest hit. "Some houses are wholly unroofed -- others mere shells-- and the greater number of those not rendered completely uninhabitable are propped up by temporary expedients. We have spoken with some of the sufferers, and they tell a melancholy tale, attributing to the mercy of Providence alone, that they and their families still live -- and declaring that while they live they never can forget the terrors of that night."

Less than 10 km away in Derrycoosh was the home of the Walsh family. John (our great great grandfather) probably had little memory of the event as he was still a baby, but his parents Patrick and Mary must have felt some of that terror. 

And some 20 km closer to the ocean, in Carrownaclea Judy Ludden was over eight month's pregnant with her first child.  Did their home survive the hurricane?

Patrick and Mary Burke in Teevnish East, nearby were most likely newly wed, or perhaps still planning their marriage.  There oldest known child Bridget was born the next year.   

Ruins of Ballybunion Castle - July 1999 (GCT)

The Kerry Evening Post (9 Jan 1839) reported " A Listowel Correspondent who writes at  considerable length informs us that the effects of the storm in that town were very disastrous. The first house visited by the storm was that of Mr McEniry's, the roof was blown in and the inmates were only saved from instant death by the rafters, which formed themselves into an arch over Mr McEniry's bed, where he and two children were sleeping... In the country around Listowel, the corn and have have been scattered to the winds. That monument of antiquity, Ballybunion Castle is a heap of Ruins..."

Listowel is about 19 kilometers and Ballybunion just 10 km from East Gullane where Edmund English was in his teens and Mary Lawler just over twenty.  Did they talk about the Big Wind as they aged? 

The Taum Herald on 19 Jan pg 4, described damages throughout the country, including

Askeaton, near the home of 10 year old Anna Fitzsimmons and Limerick where we believe James Madden just twenty was living in 1839.

It mentioned the winds whipping through Roscommon Town near the homes of Luke Delmore and Margaret Somers both in their early twenties.  Did they bring their stories of the Big Wind to their new home in Wisconsin nine years later?

Accounts in Tipperary told of fires in Thurles as thatched roofs blew off.  Just thirty miles away in Mocklershill, was three year old Bridget Dunn terrified?  Was there much damage to the Dunn household where Bridget (Lonergan) already the mother of six was once again pregnant.  John and Bridget left Ireland with their growing family just a few years later. Reports in the years following  the Big Wind, suggest that the area struggled with famine for some time.

So often I wish I could travel back in time and talk to our ancestors about so many things! 

• The Big Wind - Atlas Obscura
• The Big Wind - Irish Culture and Customs .com
• The Big Wind - Dropbox 
• Carr, Peter (1993). The Night of the Big Wind. Belfast: White Row Press. ISBN 1-870132-50-5.
• Vol. VIII of the South Mayo Family Research Journal, published in 1995