It will take some time to fully assess the many damaging effects of Storm Eleanor, which this week barrelled into Galway Bay in a very focused tunnel of extreme winds just as an exceptionally high Spring Tide was hitting the city and the Bay’s eastern shore, causing widespread flooding. The storm then tore a swathe of damage on a northeasterly path mainly through Roscommon, Leitrim, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Antrim and some adjacent counties, before curving round to spread mayhem across a wide area of northern England and gathering further power as it swept into the Continent.
At some stages, several storm centres seem to have developed, so maybe it’s unfair to blame Eleanor for all the devastation. But here’s no doubt she was the guilty party in Galway city, where the usually friendly areas of the characterful old town were flooded in a particularly destructive way, made all the more so by the pleasantly hospitable associations this part of the town has for so many of us.
Yet in the post-storm distress, icons of bizarre survival have emerged. Galway Bay SC sailor Aaron O’Reilly sent us this brief video of the clinker-built fishing boat which ended up perilously balanced – but miraculously secured – right on top of the pier across the Corrib from the Claddagh.