Ireland's Arctic Siege of 1947 by Kevin C. Kearns

Author:Kevin C. Kearns [Kearns, Kevin C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gill Books
Published: 2012-01-31T00:00:00+00:00

WEDNESDAY 26 FEBRUARY

At 6:20 on Wednesday morning the curious CIE rescue convoy, comprising assorted vehicles and passengers, pulled into Dublin. A few reporters who had got wind of the story were on hand to get the details. Neither marooned passengers nor exhausted rescuers were in much mood to talk to the press after their long and arduous ordeal: hunger drove them straight to breakfast. After which, in a surprise footnote to the whole episode, “some of the rescue squad, having had breakfast, volunteered for further urgent duty in releasing snowbound buses elsewhere.”33

By morning, everyone was eager to get their hands on a newspaper to see how bad the blizzard had been in other parts of the country. Had there been any deaths? Were victims still marooned and lost? For the past thirty-six hours editors and reporters had been scrambling to piece together the information they had been able to gather, to organise it into a coherent “big picture” of the whole country. With telecommunications down, their material was fragmentary and difficult to verify, and they drew upon whatever reliable sources were available to them. The Irish Independent reported:

When hopes were beginning to be entertained that the end of the weeks of Arctic weather was at last in sight, Dublin and the rest of the country was experiencing a fierce blizzard which raged . . . the heaviest snowfall yet leaving widespread havoc.34

Considering it by far the “worst” yet, the Irish Times sought to give readers a condensed portrait of the storm’s visit:

Blacked-out towns and villages, main roads impassable, passenger bus service suspended, homes without food and fuel, turf bogs under six feet of snow—this is the general picture of desolation left by Tuesday’s great blizzard.35

In the great blizzard’s wake, a mood of despondency hung over the country. People felt defeated, hopeless against nature. In a bleak editorial headed “On nothing,” the Irish Press wrote gravely and with an uncharacteristic sense of dejection:

“Now is the winter of our discontent . . .” One is very sure about the discontent—nature is now only a graven image of herself. The days are steely; the things we love are petrified. The east is purple cold. There is a skin of snow on the ground; only once in three weeks have we seen the stars.36

______

Digging out began at dawn. People’s first task was to dig their way out of their own house, as many had snow piled high against their doors. The fortunate ones began to extricate themselves immediately, “with shovels they had wisely brought indoors when the snow started.” Others, without vision or shovels, had to wait for outside help. Many would be trapped indoors for days, some for weeks.

In Dublin, hefty dockers wielded their coal shovels to free people and clear shopkeepers’ doors for business. Dublin Corporation sent out its full force of men with shovels, sand and straw to begin the massive job of trying to clear the city’s streets and pavements.

Even the army finally responded. Several detachments were ordered into action

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.