The Big Snows of '47, '63 & '85 -1947 was Irelands Coldest Winter

When the seventeen springs of Co. Sligo’s Bellinascarrow Lake were found to have frozen to a depth of nine feet, a group of young lads took the shoes off their horses, loaded their carts up with several tons of sawdust from the Ballymote mills and poured it all over the icy surface. ‘And didn’t they set up a stage on the lake with poles and lights and big heavy batteries!’, marvels McFadden. ‘They had bands and done dancing on it and the music of accordions and bodhrans could be heard above Boyle.’

One foolhardy gent won a whopping £30 when he drove across the lake on a BSA motorbike. Another daredevil cycled the full 10km length of Lough Key for the ‘craic’.

The rural community at Ardmore in Co. Waterford had been effectively cut off by the blizzard and the 10-foot high drifts. It took a lot of shoveling but the reward was manna itself when the bread van from Youghal finally reached the village.

Memories of 1947 big snow live on

The most talked about natural phenomenon of our grandparents and great-grandparents time was the ‘Night of the Big Wind’ which occurred on January 6, 1839.
The ferocity of the storm on that night devastated the countryside and left thousands of people homeless. Memories of the terrifying event were imprinted on the minds of both young and old. Countless stories of how people suffered are related to the present day.
Anybody over sixty years of age will have similar tales to relate about the dreadful harvest conditions of 1946 and ‘The Big Snow’ that followed in the spring of 1947. Details will vary depending on where the narrator was located at the time and the nature of surrounding terrain. The gist of stories that can be told remains constant however.
Compulsory tillage regulations introduced by the Government during World War Two were still operative in 1946. Farmers were required to cultivate a certain acreage of their holdings. Growing of wheat was compulsory in order to ensure adequate supplies of flour for bread.
Extensive acreages of wheat and oats were ready for harvesting in autumn of that year. Incessant rainfall during the months of August and September resulted in land being too soft to permit the use of harvesting machinery. it became obvious to the authorities that only an all out effort by town and country folk could save the national grain harvest.
A state of emergency was declared and an appeal was made for volunteers to give of their time and resources in a concerted campaign to help in saving the harvest whenever weather conditions permitted. The army, public services and Local Authority staff were detailed to assist in organising harvesting operations and in providing transport and food for volunteers.
Urban and rural dwellers responded in great numbers. Shopkeepers and traders donated supplies of tea, sugar, bread and butter. Lorry owners gave the use of their vehicles free of charge to transport volunteers to outlying areas. The needs of individual farmers were identified at local level.
Owners of cars and vans distributed the workers on to farms every morning, returning in the evening to collect them and take them back to the point of transport.
Due to soil conditions and to the prostrate of state of the crop, harvesting, for the most part, had to be done by manual labour. Reapers, armed with scythes, cut the corn into swathes from where it was lifted and tied into sheaves. Workers unfamiliar with the process were shown how to do this.
Having mastered the technique of ‘take and tie,’ volunteers displayed great enthusiasm and an atmosphere of excitement prevailed. The story is told of one young enthusiast from he city who, having mastered the skill of tying sheaves approached the farmer and said to him: ‘Tell me sir, how many loaves of bread will those sheaves make.’
Schythes were swung, sheaves were tied and built into stooks in an overflowing gesture of co-operation and goodwill. Although crops had already suffered considerable damage from adverse weather, through the combined efforts of all concerned, a major proportion of the harvest was saved. A fall of snow in late October covered the remnants of uncut corn and effectively terminated harvesting. As winter set in, farmers counted their losses and hoped for a better year to follow.
In 1947 snow of a dry powdery consistency commenced to fall in the first week of February and continued intermittently for several days. Driven by a penetrating east wind, it drifted until every hollow and depression was filled and the landscape assumed the appearance of a vast white prairie.
Bushes, trees, telephone and power lines disappeared under a massive burden of snow. Freezing temperatures solidified the surface, and it was possible to walk without restriction over submerged trees, pylons and buildings. Roads became impassable, communications were cut off and life in rural districts came to a standstill.
Buses, lorries and cars were abandoned in deep snow drifts, while their occupants took refuge in nearby houses until the roads became passable. Approaches to dwelling houses and farms were cleared by men with spades and shovels – bulldozers weren’t part of the scene for several years afterwards.
Farm animals out-wintered became buried under the snow and were lost in many instances. Farmers trying to locate their stock, looked for telltale signs of minute are funnels in the snow that arose from the breaths of animals trapped underneath. Some were rescued by digging them out.
In towns and cities people co-operated in clearing the snow from roads and footpaths. They suffered severe hardship however from shortages of essential food items. Deliveries of bread, milk, potatoes and vegetables ceased for days on end due to road conditions and the difficulty is assessing supplies of potatoes and vegetables on the farms.
In both town and country elderly people succumbed to cold and exposure. Burials presented especial difficulty due to snow and frozen ground. Coffins were transported in improvised sleighs - usually barn doors taken from their hinges and pulled with ropes. In some instances remains of deceased persons had to be temporarily buried in snow until graves could be opened in the frosty ground.

http://archives.tcm.ie/sligoweekender/2004/01/27/story16169.asp

[The greatest snowfall of the century It began on the night of Monday 24 February 1947. The greatest snowfall of the century was on its way. Today it is simply remembered as, ”The Blizzard. As I look back to those far off days when I was a young ten year old ,I recall in a special way the words of the poet William Wordsworth when he wrote, “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven,” and so it was.
http://homepage.eircom.net/~greenst/blizzardof47.html