Great Wind

transcribed at

The Great Wind  [duchas:4731115]

The great Wind

Many people who are over eighty years of age remember the great wind of 1857. Never since has such a storm occurred. The wind lasted for many days. It is said to have blown lakes from one place to another, and to have blown whole houses from their foundations. It came very suddenly, and was followed by terrific showers of rain. Land where cattle had browsed a few days before, became the sporting place of gulls and other sea-birds. The people were in terror of their lives, and they seldom ventured outside their homes.
A Legend:
An old story says that before the rain came the wind raged for three days. On the third day it calmed a little. In County Meath, a farmer lived with his aged mother. He was obliged to go on a long journey

The Great Wind  [duchas:4731116]

and leave her. Before he went, she being terrified decided to sit out on a chair beside on old bush until he would return. He tied her chair to the bush and strapped his aged mother in the chair, and as the wind had almost ceased he though she would be safe. It tore the tree from its roots and blew it into a field, some distance away. When the farmer returned in the evening, he searched for his mother, and found her some fields distance, but exactly as he had left her strapped to the chain. She was unable to free herself, and was so ill-treated that she died in her home next day.

Una Finnegan
Newbliss

Told by : -
Mrs McCabe,
Drumcall,
Newbliss.