Richard Hogan: Was solar eclipse the best sight of my life? 100%

A trip with his family to Menorca to see the total solar eclipse rendered Richard Hogan speechless

The solar eclipse as seen from Palencia city in northern Spain. It was the first time a total solar eclipse could be viewed from the country since 1905. Picture: Leon Neal/Getty

For years, I was tormented by the sky. I’d read magazines on the great celestial goings-on in our solar system, wide-eyed, I’d look up, and nothing. An unrelating grey canopy of stratocumulus clouds. I couldn’t understand it.

Then I’d hear Anne Doyle or Charles Mitchel describe with great excitement what was going to fill our sky that evening. I’d be telling my friends about it all that day, and then I’d stay up late, peel back the curtains with such unabandoned expectations to behold the great gig in the sky, and once again, nothing. I cursed the sky.

Growing up in 1980s Ireland was a bit grim. Statues were moving down the road but nothing was moving overhead. And being a young astronomical lover, it perplexed me, no end. I began to think those events were just for other people, maybe good ones.

I’d watch the Six O’Clock News on RTÉ and there would be people dancing around Dover neath meteor showers, or surfers over in California describing in their inimitable stoner way how the sky amazed them. But not me.

I could describe the smell of petrichor like a Nobel-Prize-winning author. It was in my soul. Geosmin and streptomyces; oh, how you tormented me. Rain spoilt so many of my childish days.

I’d jump out of bed in the morning, having prayed all night that the rain would just bugger off for one day and let us kids have our St Columba’s Sports Day. Not to be. We’d all be stuck inside the tiny hall, doing laps. Our stale breath fogging up the windows.

I’d be staring at the gaudy, amateurish drawings of animals on the walls, cursing the rain under my breath. It would generally clear up around home time, just to add that final kick in the groin.

Then I moved to Dublin as an adult, and the rain stopped. I thought maybe, just maybe, I’d be one of those stoners dancing around some mega celestial event in the sky. But again, clouds.

Clouds and rain have been my mortal enemy since I was a child. I’ve looked at clouds and rain from both sides now, and I have never seen any astronomical event in my life. A shooting star here or there, the odd meteor shower if I was lucky, but nothing really that significant.

That is until last week. My cousin Des Finn and his wife Michelle organised a holiday to Menorca to coincide with the total solar eclipse. They messaged us back in April, wondering if we would be interested in coming to see it.

The Irish climate had kind of killed any excitement my inner child once held about the sky. So, when the message came in, that child was once again reignited and I jumped at the chance.

Last Wednesday, we sat in Bambú, a wonderful restaurant just outside the little romantic town of Binibeca in Menorca. The evening sky stretched out in front of us. 

Michelle even provided us with the protective eclipse glasses; I’d be currently blind if it wasn’t for her. How I laughed at Donald Trump when he stared right into one. Self-righteousness is not a good look.

But as we sat there, my daughters chatting away with their English cousins, Lily and Daisy, I couldn’t stop thinking about the memories they were in the middle of. I wondered how they would recall this moment from their childhood, years and years hence. 

Maybe at the next eclipse, when they would be in their 70s and I would be 120. I questioned if I’d be around to see it — I’m an optimist. I certainly was on Wednesday evening after a jug of sangria.

As the moon slowly started to turn the sun into a giant Pac-Man, I couldn’t really believe my eyes. All the years, and all those nights of disappointment and self-loathing, all the times I returned to my bed having stared up at nothing but heavy grey clouds instead of an eclipse or meteor shower, were gone.

I sat there in amazement, as the moon obscured the sun, creating the greatest sight I have ever seen.

My eldest daughter shouted over: “Dad, are you okay?” I was gobsmacked and silent. Like the first time I saw Paul McCartney play live. I was without speech.

Then came the summit of the event; the solar corona. We had 100% clarity of the eclipse. I never thought I would write a sentence like that in my life. We had the best seats in the house, for a once-in-a-lifetime solar event. And I actually got to see it. No clouds, no rain.

The corona lasted about 90 seconds but it was a magical 90 seconds. Everyone in the restaurant and on the ground below us was staring up, clapping their hands and whistling. We are far more connected to our sky than we know. It was one of the greatest events I have ever seen.

Of course, children’s births don’t even come into the comparison. But I had waited 50 long years to see something remarkable in the sky. It was worth the wait.

And when we arrived back into Dublin early Sunday morning, it was cold and a little wet. After sweltering in 35 degrees for a week, I was delighted to be under the clouds once again.