The Night of the Big Wind (Irish: Oíche na Gaoithe Móire) was a hurricane which swept without warning across Ireland beginning in the afternoon of 6 January 1839, causing severe damage to property and several hundred deaths; 20% to 25% of houses in north Dublin were damaged or destroyed, and 42 ships were wrecked. The storm attained a very low barometric pressure of 918 hectopascals (27.1 inHg) and tracked eastwards to the north of Ireland, bringing winds gusts of over 100 knots (185 km/h, 115 mph) to the south before moving across the north of England and onto the European continent where it eventually died out. At the time, it was the most damaging Irish storm for 300 years.
Read more about Night Of The Big Wind: Meteorological Situation, Damage, Legacy, Related Writing
Famous quotes containing the words night, big and/or wind:
“I have placed slippers very carefully under my bed, only to have them crawl out during the night to a position where I will step into them the wrong way round when leaping out of bed to answer the telephone.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“Kicking the heart
with pain’s big boots running up and down
the intestines like a motorcycle racer.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by.”
—Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)