Storm leaves us high and dry on Arranmore

MY licence plate, like many of the best things in life, came in two pieces.

Torn off the back of the car, it was just one small example of the power of Irish weather, but there were plenty more wherever you cared to look.

Spending a few days on Arranmore Island off the Donegal coast at this time of the year always means a bit of planning but, when the wind kicks in, most of that planning is blown away with the gusts. It is my wife’s birthplace and we travelled here last Friday to spend some time with my in-laws and were due to head back to Dublin and the office on Monday. Suffice it to say, it didn’t happen.

The ferry crossing to the mainland at Burtonport would have been fine on Monday, but the roads on arrival were not. When road conditions are the lead item on the 1pm bulletins, then it is best to pay heed.

Reports reached us of very bad black ice on the road to Letterkenny and also to Ballybofey, pretty much the only ways to get to the Derry-Dublin road or to Strabane so you can drive down through the North. Either that, or pack a compass and head on a circuitous route which may very well lead you to Belfast.

If you’ve ever been to Allihies in West Cork or to parts of deepest west Kerry, then you will know what I mean when I say that rural Donegal is up there when it comes to corkscrew bends that give you twisted blood and swooping climbs where even the sheep appear to be hanging on by their toe nails. As an aside, I would have been travelling with a wife who is 26 weeks pregnant and our 16-month-old daughter.

Discretion/cowardice being the better part of valour, we decided to stay put for a day, and strike out yesterday. The seafaring folk on Arranmore already knew this was unlikely, what with the massive gale lashing its way in from the Atlantic. And they were right, my shattered licence plate proof of winds that reached gusts of up to 135km/h overnight.

When we awoke in the morning the power was off. I briefly considered whether this meant I would have to send this piece via carrier pigeon, or pop it into a bottle and lob it into the ocean, in the hope that it might reach Cork by about 5pm. All right, that’s a lie; I did wonder whether I’d be able to tap it all out on my phone without it going into meltdown.

Luckily, the power flicked back on shortly afterward but ferry services, already curtailed in recent days due to strong winds and rough seas, were again off yesterday morning, before resuming in the afternoon in heavy sea conditions.

According to a woman at the car ferry company: “We’re taking it one by one at the moment — it’s getting pretty rough. Tomorrow’s not looking great either, to be honest.”

That’s cheerful. We’ve already missed a maternity appointment at Holles St, with the physio appointment scheduled for today not looking likely either.

That’s not too bad, considering the strength of the winds and what might have happened. Neighbouring houses lost slates and the garden bench was upside down, although it is not the first time it’s been tossed into the air like confetti by strong winds. Two days after I got married on Arranmore it was thrown over a wall such was the force of an overnight gust — and that was in May.

The weather is our national pastime, an endless source of conversation, but it can be easily forgotten just how influential it can be when it exerts its hold. Ferries cancelled, roads impassable, people unable to take important journeys, never mind the dangers to crops, vehicles, man and beast.

As for my licence plate, both it and the frame that once surrounded it are currently plonked on top of the fridge, awaiting reattachment. I hope they have superglue in the shop. At least the foot ferry made a few crossings — maybe they got some in.