Memories of coldest winters recalled as Lough freezes over

Temperatures dipped to minus 4 in the city this week, and birds and ducks were spotted walking across the thin ice that formed on the surface. 

It brought back memories of some of the coldest winters on record in Cork. 

In 2010, The Lough was completely frozen over and children and adults skated and played games on it for several weeks. 

Cork City Council was forced to erected notices warning people against walking on the ice, but it didn't little to deter adventurous youths. 

One of the worst freezes happened in 1987 when The Lough was frozen so solidly that it became a playground once again. 

However, winter of 1947 remains the harshest ever in Ireland when from January 19 to March 15, an arctic cold snap led to five major blizzards and caused many deaths.

As temperatures barely rose above freezing for weeks on end, the snow remained and in the 50 days from January 25 to St Patrick’s Day, 30 saw snow.

‘The Blizzard’ of February 25 alone was the greatest single snowfall on record and lasted for almosty 50 hours, smothering the entire island.