Cork weather woman: ‘I have farmers ringing to see if the weather is good for cutting silage'

Even as a child, Mary McCarthy was always fascinated with the weather forecast.

Growing up in West Cork, close to the sea, she was the person in the house who was charged with monitoring the weather and giving forecasts to the rest of her family.

Her dad, Paddy, is a farmer and a fisherman, and it was usually his brother, her late Uncle Connie, who asked her to make sure to catch the forecast while they were out fishing.

And so, Mary dutifully tuned in to the daily weather reports to update the men when they returned to shore. It was a labour of love for her.

“I was obsessed with the weather, and I still am,” she said.

Paddy and Connie grew up on Horse Island in Roaring Water Bay, which is now privately owned, the indigenous island community all gone, and it was here that they learned about the weather patterns of the natural world and passed them on to Mary.

Signs of change were observed in the flight direction of the birds, the overall appearance of the moon, and the patterns of the clouds; a knowledge acquired and passed down through the generations.

This knowledge came from a different era, before television forecasts or weather apps, when the signs of change were understood by people who lived close to nature, and particularly those who lived on the offshore islands, many of whom depended on the sea for their livelihoods.

Mary uses the knowledge passed on to her through her family, combined with modern technology, to predict the weather.

Her father Paddy taught her well and she also follows Met Éireann rigorously.

She was delighted to meet up with meteorologist Joanna Donnelly when she was on a visit to Schull.

One can be certain that the two enthusiasts discussed ‘The Weather’ as it continues to be a national obsession, and in Ireland it is one of our main conversation starters, with good reason, as it has the most profound influence on all our lives.

If it’s sunny, we greet each other with a smile, declaring: “it’s very hot - but I’m not complaining!’ as we recall being soaked to the skin from freezing rain.

As an island nation, we all know it’s not very often that we can risk wearing that faux fur jacket or the pair of blue suede shoes that we bought in the sales.

Without a thorough check of the forecast in advance, we could end up looking like the proverbial drowned rat, fur drooping and woefully squelching along, the suede shoes failing to provide an adequate barrier to getting wet feet in the lashing rain.

Given the rapidly changing weather, we are fortunate to have some ace forecasters such as Mary and Joanna to give us a steer on what to wear and how to prepare for extreme weather events such as the recent Storm Éowyn.

In recent years, people in Ireland have been increasingly turning to weather forecasters with online platforms.

In Carlow, there is Alan O’Reilly with Carlow Weather, and in Cork, Mary’s childhood obsession has grown with her and has seen her build a robust following through her Facebook page – ‘Mary’s Mizen Weather’ - which she set up just over a year ago and now has more than 1,300 followers.

“I started off just putting the weather forecasts on my own personal page and then more and more people started asking me about the forecast, so my son suggested to me that I set up a seperate weather page on Facebook.

“I regularly have local farmers ringing me up to see if the weather would be good for cutting silage, so I was gradually becoming the local go-to person for the forecast anyway, so I said to myself, ‘why not?’ and set up Mary’s Mizen Weather.

“I absolutely love connecting with people through my page. It’s a great way to keep in touch and there are really nice people coming on it each morning and exchanging their greetings, it’s a lovely community.”

Mary provides a fantastic public service - often with a bit of humour. She updates her page daily around 6am (with a rare post coming a bit later when she apologises to her followers that she’s had a little bit of a lie-in).

“Today another fine, dry, hardy day with passing cloud and sunshine in between.

“Great day again on the clothesline and even for the slurry spreaders.

“Winds today are east/north-east for the day and they will be gusting between 20km-30km.

“Temperatures today of 6-7 degrees but in that wind it will feel more like 0-1 degrees,” a recent post read.

There was plenty of humour in the responses, with one poster commenting “Let’s hope the slurry spreaders won’t be too near the clothes-line.”

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As well as her daily forecast, Mary strives to give the Mizen community predictions for the next three days.

“It’s always good to acknowledge that these are weather predictions, and while I’m happy to say that mostly I’m pretty accurate, things can suddenly change, especially on the Atlantic coast with the Gulf Stream and different atmospheric air pressures.”

Before the days of accurate weather forecasts such as Mary’s, communities were often unprepared and taken by surprise at sudden changes in the weather.

Back in 1839, people could have done with some good forecasting such as hers. During the Night of the Big Wind, ‘Oíche na Gaoithe Móire’, on January 6 that year, people thought that the world was about to end.

Ireland was under a blanket of snow and the weather was mild during the day, but towards the evening the wind began to rise and by midnight it was blowing a fierce gale so mighty that the bell of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin was blown out of the steeple.

Farmyard hens were blown up to a distance of half a mile, the rear wall of the Guinness Brewery was blown down and nine brewery horses were killed. 250,000 trees were blown down and chimneys fell, igniting thatched roofs and destroying many homes. Forty-two ships went down and 17 fishermen in Clifden in Co.Galway lost their lives.

While many have recently experienced the hardships of prolonged power cuts during Storm Éowyn, the outcomes could have been worse had people not known what was coming down the line.

Being prepared is vital, and while Mother Nature is in charge, Mary thinks that certain things can be put in place to mitigate some of the devastating aftermaths of extreme weather events.

“I’d love to see river flood alarms installed here,” she said.

She also feels that when it comes to weather forecasting, Cork should be divided into regions.

“Cork is the biggest county in Ireland so the forecasts should be given for North, South, East and West Cork separately.

“Due to the size of the county, the weather can differ from one end to the other, so it does not make sense to treat it as a whole.”

For now though, those living around the Mizen Peninsula have the benefit of a great weather forecaster.

Follow: Mary’s Mizen Weather on Facebook