'It was brilliant': Cork teacher builds 23ft snowman in Limerick
Servatius Antonius and his friends built Big Bill over the weekend. Pictures: Servatius Antonius
In the midst of Ireland's ongoing Arctic snap, one Cork teacher has been busy building a 23ft-tall snowman.
The country has seen a raft of weather warnings and thousands have been left without power. But Scoil Mhuire teacher Servatius Antonius decided to lift the mood with his snow creation.
The snowman, who has been christened 'Big Bill', took five hours to build and came to life during a water and power outage in the village of Elton in Co Limerick on Sunday.
Servatius, 28, had help from his brother, Paulus, three friends and a few ladders in bringing Big Bill to life.
In 2018, during the infamous Beast from the East, Servatius and Paulus built another giant snowman named Andre. That snowman measured between 15ft and 18ft.
This time around, they were determined to beat their own record and they did just that, by at least 5ft. According to Servatius, the most difficult part of building the new snowman was placing the hat on top of his head.
“His hat was a big 3ft tub. I literally had to go on my tippy toes on top of the ladder, and the ladder was 15ft, so that was kind of scary,” he said.
Building the base also was very time-consuming because it had to be thick enough to “support a snowman with a traffic cone as a nose”.
In typical fashion, Big Bill’s eyes were made from lumps of coal, and his buttons were made from sods of turf. Given the size of the snowman, the men used a king-sized duvet cover for his scarf.
“This was very difficult to put around him, but we managed,” added Servatius.
While Servatius enjoyed building Big Bill, he is paying for it now, saying he is "still wrecked" two days later.
Big Bill was built while Servatius was dealing with a water and power outage, both of which have now been restored.
“Thank God, because I did not realise how hard life would be without water," he said.
“We were trying to kill time, and we thought 'we either stay inside and do nothing, or we can build a snowman', and it was brilliant.”
Commenting on Big Bill’s popularity, Servatius said: “It’s funny how fast one picture can just fly through the internet. I did not expect this when I was building Big Bill.”
Unfortunately for anyone hoping to pay a visit to Big Bill, his head has since fallen off. Servatius said it was for the best as it could have become a safety hazard due to people going to take pictures with the snowman.
The teacher will return to work tomorrow and has fresh plans for the next Arctic blast, saying “hopefully next time we have more snow, we’ll make a 50ft snowman”.
Meanwhile, two status orange low temperature and ice warnings have been issued for most of the country on Tuesday and Wednesday night by Met Éireann. Temperatures are set to plummet on Tuesday evening to lows of -8C, and daytime temperatures will struggle to climb above freezing.
Some 10,000 homes and businesses across the country are still without power, with the main locations affected being Kerry, Limerick and Tipperary. Some 25,000 homes are without water.
Check out the Irish Examiner's WEATHER CENTRE for regularly updated short and long range forecasts wherever you are.
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