{"id":301063,"date":"2026-01-24T09:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T09:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/301063\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T09:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T09:34:10","slug":"it-took-away-the-last-few-things-my-son-enjoyed-his-world-really-narrowed-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/301063\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It took away the last few things my son enjoyed … his world really narrowed\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the night Storm \u00c9owyn<\/a> landed last year, Joan Comer woke at 3am and realised that the baby monitor she was using to keep watch on her dying son was not working. <\/p>\n

The power had gone out in the family home in Dunmore, Co Galway<\/a>, in the early hours of January 24th and would not be restored for eight days. <\/p>\n

Her son Rory (29), a primary schoolteacher, had been diagnosed with brain cancer in 2019 and the family was told it was terminal in December 2024. <\/p>\n

There is no good time for the storm of a century to hit, but the timing could hardly have been worse for Joan, Rory and his partner Danielle Devlin. <\/p>\n

She spent the rest of the night of Storm \u00c9owyn sitting in the bedroom with a torch. There was no phone signal, no light, no heat. \u201cThat was the start of our nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n

A nurse from Galway Hospice arrived in person on the afternoon of January 24th after the storm had passed. She couldn\u2019t contact the Comers because there was no phone signal, so decided to call out on spec. The nurse had to drive for miles to get a signal to call the hospice doctor to see what was needed and then drive back again to the Comer home. <\/p>\n

The local pharmacy and GP practice were also out because of the storm. Her son could not listen to music, watch television or play his PlayStation with friends \u2013 his small comforts as his health deteriorated. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe storm took away the last few things he enjoyed. His world really narrowed down,\u201d she recalls a year later. \u201cIt made life so difficult for us. Everything we depended on from day to day just wasn\u2019t available any more.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"RoryRory Comer at home with his mother, Joan. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni <\/p>\n

Rory Comer died on March 7th last year. \u201cThe stress of that situation definitely impacted on his final weeks,\u201d his mother says. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor those last few weeks we were on edge again. The power would flicker on and off. Every time, if we hear about a storm, it comes flooding back.\u201d <\/p>\n

Her son was named after the guitarist Rory Gallagher, and he lived up to the name. The music room is left as it was when he died, valuable guitars in racks, a pedal board, effects pedals, a drum kit and shelf after shelf of vinyl. There\u2019s a poster on the wall of a line-up from the 2019 Rory Gallagher Festival in Ballyshannon.<\/p>\n

Rory Comer played that festival every year, his mother says. After he died, many people contacted her to tell her how much his music meant to them. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Storm \u00c9owyn costs ESB \u20ac100m in network repairsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

She has counted 20 power cuts since Storm \u00c9owyn. \u201cWe haven\u2019t got any explanation as to why it happened. It could be for an hour for a day. We don\u2019t know if it is demand. Maybe it is because we are in a not-so-remote place in rural Ireland \u2013 we seem to have been forgotten about. Whatever damage was done hasn\u2019t been properly repaired.\u201d <\/p>\n

The highest wind speed ever recorded in Ireland \u2013 a 184km\/h gust in the early hours of January 24th last year \u2013 was noted at Mace Head, Co Galway. <\/p>\n

Storm \u00c9owyn divided the country in two. On the east coast the damage was short-lived and people returned to normal living within two days; along the west coast \u2013 from Galway through Mayo, Roscommon, Leitrim and Sligo \u2013 a trail of devastation ensued. At the peak of the storm, 768,000 electricity customers were affected. According to ESB Networks<\/a>, approximately 10 per cent of customers (about 75,000) were left without power for more than week. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Expect more extreme weather as climate change impact now \u2018stark\u2019, says Met \u00c9ireannOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In its annual review, Met \u00c9ireann<\/a> stated that the strength of Storm \u00c9owyn was partially down to climate change<\/a> and that more powerful storms could be expected in the future. <\/p>\n

Many people still bear the psychological scars of Storm \u00c9owyn. It was a time when hundreds of thousands of people were stripped of the necessities of modern living, and many for prolonged periods of time. Electricity, heating, water, internet and telephone connections all went down. <\/p>\n

\"ConnemaraConnemara resident and broadcaster M\u00e1ir\u00edn N\u00ed Ghadhra was left without power for eight days following Storm \u00c9owyn. Photograph: Ronan McGreevy <\/p>\n

The well-known broadcaster and Connemara resident M\u00e1ir\u00edn N\u00ed Ghadhra was trapped in her home for three days, with trees down on both laneways. She couldn\u2019t get to work in Raidi\u00f3 na Gaeltachta or even text the station to say she couldn\u2019t come in. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was quite literally a perfect storm. People did not understand after the fact why more help did not come quicker. It took off the blinders for many of us,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hear local politicians on a regular basis saying that not enough has been done. Where are the emergency hubs we have been promised?\u201d <\/p>\n

The Government is drawing up plans for 400 such emergency hubs<\/a> across the country capable of keeping communities going during extreme weather events. A pilot programme was put in place during Storm Amy (October 3rd, 2025), when eight hubs were established in Donegal. Every local authority has been furnished with a guide to community support centres, and the Government will be putting plans in place with all local authorities in March. These hubs cannot come quickly enough for communities fearing the next big storm. <\/p>\n

\"MaureenMaureen Folan lost the roof off her home in Carna, Co Galway during the storm. She has lived in the same house for 43 years. Photograph: Ronan McGreevy \"MaureenMaureen Folan lost the roof of her home in Carna, Co Galway, during Storm \u00c9owyn. A year later, the house is being rebuilt. Photograph: Ronan McGreevy <\/p>\n

One of the worst-affected places was the village of Carna in Connemara. During the night of the storm, the roof of Maureen Folan\u2019s house blew off. In an exercise in digital Meith\u00e9al, a GoFundMe account started by a friend raised more than \u20ac100,000 and the house is now being rebuilt. <\/p>\n

In the offices of \u00dadar\u00e1s na Gaeltachta in Carna, M\u00e1ir\u00edn N\u00ed Choisdealbha-Seoige, manager of Forbairt Chonamara Lair Teo, is already prepared for the next storm. <\/p>\n

Blankets, water bottles, hot water bottles, torches, power banks, tea flasks and soup flasks are packed into crates waiting for distribution to vulnerable residents in the event of an emergency. They have been paid for with a National Lottery grant. <\/p>\n

\"MáirínM\u00e1ir\u00edn N\u00ed Choisdealbha-Seoige with crates of emergency supplies for future storms. Photograph: Ronan McGreevy <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were reactive rather than proactive the last time. I asked about the community hubs and how they will be activated, but it will still be down to the will of the neighbours the next time it happens,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

Kevin Igoe of Igoe Agri and Engineering in Castlerea, Co Roscommon, discounted his last remaining generator before Storm \u00c9owyn because he couldn\u2019t get it sold.<\/p>\n

In the immediate aftermath of Storm \u00c9owyn he travelled to Northern Ireland to buy generators. By the time he reached his destination he had 40 orders, but there were only 18 available despite the prohibitive costs involved \u2013 a generator can cost \u20ac1,400. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf I had 250 of them I could have sold them,\u201d he says. \u201cAfter two days I gave up jotting down names. You don\u2019t even need a storm. The power is going out regularly around us.\u201d <\/p>\n

One of the worst-affected counties was Leitrim<\/a>. Some homes were without electricity for 20 days. Much of the blame for the extended outages was put on the proliferation of commercial forestry<\/a> in the country. Lisa McCrann and her husband and their six year old daughter, who live outside the village of Cloone, were without power for 15 days. <\/p>\n

Aerial footage taken by drone shows fallen trees on power lines. The issue of thinning trees around power lines has been raised time and again with local representatives, she says, but \u201cabsolutely nothing\u201d has been done to clear trees from the wood near her home.<\/p>\n

A tree fell on an electricity line in November last year. \u201cHow the wire didn\u2019t break … none of us could figure it out. The trees are growing up nearly touching the lines again,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe storms are getting stronger and stronger in the last few years. We had to pay for a generator, we have had an electrician out to wire everything up for us again. We shouldn\u2019t have to when a lot of the issues around here are trees. It\u2019s frustrating.\u201d <\/p>\n

According to ESB Networks, almost 60 per cent of all power outages during Storm \u00c9owyn were caused by falling trees. ESB Networks has identified 700 kilometres of power lines that are too close to trees and will need to be managed. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Storm \u00c9owyn costs ESB \u20ac100m in network repairsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Legislation is being prepared to give ESB Networks the power to remove trees along identified corridors, but will it come in time for the next big storm? <\/p>\n

The Department of Agriculture estimated that Storm \u00c9owyn brought down nearly 24,000 hectares of forestry \u2013 the equivalent of two-and-a-half years of the annual harvest. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Extremely disappointing\u2019: Plans to protect Ireland against extreme weather criticisedOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Paddy Fahey lost 90 per cent of his 20-acre forest outside Woodford in Co Galway. The wind was funnelled from the river Shannon nearby and the Slieve Aughty mountains, and hit his plantation with full force. <\/p>\n

\"PaddyPaddy Fahey’s 20-acre forest was decimated by Storm \u00c9owyn. Photograph: Ronan McGreevy <\/p>\n

The forest was planted by his father 25 years ago as a pension fund for the family. The timber from the forest was not due to be harvested for another 10 years, in time for Fahey\u2019s retirement. He waited six months to assess the national picture before applying for a felling licence and it took six months to get the licence. He has a small window to act \u2013 he has to remove the timber before March and after September because of the presence of the Merlin locally, a protected bird. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe drove up the next morning and I knew what we were going to expect. It was all timber of this age that was taken down,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

A year on, the remains of hundreds of Sitka spruce and larch trees remain in a giant tangled mess, their roots vertical to the ground.<\/p>\n

A fully mature forest can fetch from \u20ac12,000 to \u20ac14,000 an acre after 35 years; Fahey can expect just \u20ac7,000 to \u20ac8,000 for the timber he will harvest this year \u2013 and a lot of that will have to go back into the business if he intends to replant. <\/p>\n

Galway IFA forestry representative Pat Lyons says the junior minister with responsibility for forestry, Michael Healy-Rae<\/a>, deserves credit for turning thinning licences into felling licences. Anybody with a felling licence was given the go-ahead. <\/p>\n

The Government has been encouraging investment in forestry. He estimates that 15 to 20 per cent of the timber from Storm \u00c9owyn will never be harvested because the cost for small farmers to remove the timber is prohibitive. There has been a psychological toll on private forestry owners too. Many are understandably reluctant to ever plant again. <\/p>\n

Barna Woods is a beautiful area of mixed broadleaf woodland outside Galway city. Storm \u00c9owyn flattened more than 100 trees in the wood and felled trees remain scattered throughout the forest floor. <\/p>\n

\"AA wood sculpture of an eagle carved from a fallen tree in Barna Woods, outside Galway city. Photograph: Ronan McGreevy \"AA wooden otter chases a wooden fish in this sculpture carved from a fallen tree in Barna Woods. Photograph: Ronan McGreevy \"AA sculpture of an owl carved from a storm-damaged tree in Barna Woods. Photograph: Ronan McGreevy <\/p>\n

Galway City Council opted to turn the disaster of the storm into an opportunity to leave a tangible legacy. It commissioned chainsaw artist Will Fogarty<\/a> to create sculptures out of fallen trees. He has created an eagle, an owl, an otter chasing a fish, a tree spirit and a tree house from the trunks of trees. These much-admired sculptures are now a tourist attraction. <\/p>\n

The collapse of the Connacht GAA Air Dome<\/a> at Bekan in Co Mayo was one of the enduring images of Storm \u00c9owyn. It was a devastating loss for Connacht GAA and for the 250,000 who were using it on an annual basis. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a huge loss financially to us, but it was also a huge loss to the young people of Ireland,\u201d says Connacht GAA chief executive John Prenty. <\/p>\n

A replacement is being built in Slovenia, one that he hopes will be more resilient, with new technology that has moved on since the original was built seven years ago. <\/p>\n

\"HighHigh winds from Storm \u00c9owyn destroyed the Connacht GAA Air Dome in Mayo. Photograph: \u00a9Inpho\/James Crombie <\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, weather permitting, we will be back in business in April. You can\u2019t be sure, but hopefully this storm was once in a generation and we hope it won\u2019t happen again in the next generation. We are happy that the structure is adequate.\u201d <\/p>\n

The original cost was \u20ac3.5 million and he anticipates its replacement will cost something similar. <\/p>\n

Connacht GAA, he says, is no different from the householders and farmers who \u201cjust had to get on with it after Storm \u00c9owyn. \u201cWe are of the philosophy that anything is possible if you do it right.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the night Storm \u00c9owyn landed last year, Joan Comer woke at 3am and realised that the baby…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,442,5074,18,14188,13,14,5009,1878,6,19,17,11,12,10743,15,16,2354,5602,5283,5,960,7,8,1102,2212],"class_list":{"0":"post-301063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-climate-change","11":"tag-connemara","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-esb-networks","14":"tag-featured-news","15":"tag-featurednews","16":"tag-forestry","17":"tag-galway","18":"tag-headlines","19":"tag-ie","20":"tag-ireland","21":"tag-latest-news","22":"tag-latestnews","23":"tag-leitrim","24":"tag-main-news","25":"tag-mainnews","26":"tag-mayo","27":"tag-met-eireann","28":"tag-michael-healy-rae","29":"tag-news","30":"tag-storm-eowyn","31":"tag-top-stories","32":"tag-topstories","33":"tag-weather-events","34":"tag-weekendreview"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115949395447514189","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}