40th day of rain will mean St Swithin curse has struck

IF IT rains today then Ireland will have had 40 days of rainfall, proving the legend of St Swithin true.

Met Éireann figures show rain has fallen in the Republic every day since the saint’s day on July 15.

The legend goes back 1,036 years, when the remains of Swithin, the Bishop of Winchester, were reburied on July 15 in 971.

The occasion was marked by very heavy rainfall, starting the tradition that if it rains on St Swithin’s Day it will also rain for the next 40 days.

Met Éireann recorded rain in Belmullet, Co Mayo, and Malin Head, Co Donegal, yesterday — the 39th day of successive rainfall since July 15.

And if today’s forecast of rain in northern and western areas proves right, Ireland will have fallen victim to the curse.

But yesterday Met Éireann predicted the wet spell would end this weekend, with sunny spells and temperatures as high as 22C.

“We don’t take any notice of St Swithin’s Day but we do get poor summers every now and then,” said forecaster, Siobhán Ryan.

“We’ve had a succession of low fronts moving towards us from the Atlantic and this is what has made the weather so wet. We really had our summer in April when we had an extremely warm and dry period.”

However, we will soon be basking in warm weather as a high pressure area moves over the country.

“It won’t be a heatwave by any means but the high pressure will bring settled weather until the early days of next week,” she said.

This summer, parts of Ireland have had their wettest weather for almost two centuries. Dublin’s Phoenix Park had 297mm of rain in two months, the highest level in its 170-year records.

Last month, Mullingar, Co Westmeath, had its wettest July since 1960, with 154mm of rain.

On July 13, Kilkenny had 23.9mm, the county’s wettest July day since 1988.

Since St Swithin’s Day, Cork and Dublin have been subjected to rain on almost every day bar a handful of periods of respite.

Among the bleakest days was August 5, which Met Éireann figures show saw 20.6mm of rain in Cork and 14.3mm in Dublin.

Ironically, one of the drier days was St Swithin’s Day itself, when a mere 0.9mm fell in Cork and 0.6mm in Dublin.