We love to talk about the weather, but barely a word about our climate

WE HANG over the half-door and stare at the sky.

“Will it clear up?” we ask constantly. If it’s fine, we ask, in that peculiarly Irish expression, “Will it hold up?”

Living as we do now, on holiday in Connemara in a tiny cottage just feet from the sea, the weather determines our every move. We’re getting a small taste of the life of the fishermen who once lived in this place, until most of them were wiped out by a sudden storm in the Cleggan Disaster of 1927.