First daffodil already in bloom

It wasn’t beside a lake or beneath a tree but it was most certainly fluttering and dancing in the breeze when Clodagh O’Connor discovered what is thought to be Ireland’s first daffodil of 2013.

Clodagh, 8, from Brennan’s Glen in Kerry, could scarcely believe her eyes when she spotted the solitary yellow flower floating on high o’er a town centre flower-bed in Killarney yesterday afternoon.

Weeks ahead of the normal daffodil season, it caught the imagination of passersby who all considered the third day of January astonishingly early for a mini-bloom of one of the country’s most loved flowers.