The Big Snow - 1982

Paully D

I’ve been reliably informed that this day exactly 37 years ago we had the big snow of 1982.

Here’s an RTÉ News report from the time:

https://www.rte.ie/archives/2017/0109/843556-snow-causes-major-disruptions/

Do any posters have some memories or pictures/videos from the time to share?

DOCARCH

There are a couple of threads already on 'The Big Snow'....such as....

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=58710689

sideswipe

A day that is etched into my memory. Had loads of homework the night before the snow arrived. I ended up leaving some of the homework to do the next morning which was actually my 8th birthday, I secretly hoped the folks would give me a pass then. Got up next morning and remember an overwhelming wave of joy hit me when I saw the place blanketed outside.
Best birthday present ever. Can't remember how long we were off school but I still didn't have the homework done!

Foggy Jew

sideswipe wrote: »

A day is etched into my memory. Had loads of homework the night before the snow arrived. I ended up leaving some of the homework to do the next morning which was actually my 8th birthday, I secretly hoped the folks would give me a pass then. Got up next morning and remember an overwhelming wave of joy hit me when I saw the place blanketed outside.
Best birthday present ever. Can't remember how long we were off school but I still didn't have the homework done!

Happy birthday for tomorrow

Day Lewin

I remember this really vividly.
We'd gone out for dinner at a favourite Indian restaurant in Dun Laoghaire. When we came out to go home, the snow was already starting: falling down steadily, thickly, like cotton-wool balls.
The town Christmas tree was still up, and lighted, on the little square in front of St Michael's Church and it looked absolutely magical in the light and the falling snow.
We got a taxi home and encouraged the baby-sitter to hurry homewards as a pillion passenger on the motorbike of her boyfriend.
The snow never stopped, it blanketed all surfaces even as we watched.

Next morning the snow was still falling: when it finally stopped it lay so deep that our toddler was below the height of it, and the railway at Tara St was completely filled with snow between the platforms.

The Naas Rd and the Swords Rd were lined with the carcasses of cars that the owners had abandoned at the roadside, and later the JCB's ploughed into them!

Best snow I've ever seen - fond memories.

gabeeg

There was an Indian restaurant in Dublin in 1982?

Day Lewin

gabeeg wrote: »

There was an Indian restaurant in Dublin in 1982?

A really excellent one: The "Krishna" in George's St, Dun Laoghaire: a family business, of course.
Delicious breads and vegetable dishes: best Sookhe Aloo I've ever had. I'm still trying to recreate the recipe!

There were plenty of others Indian places in town, too: but this one was exceptional.

lapua20grain

My sister was born on the 8th of Jan 1982 my memory was as a 10 year old with my neighbour digging out the path so the ambulance men could get to the house to take my mother to the hospital. As fast as we were digging the snow was filling up again.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Don’t remember it but it must have been great for kids. An extended Christmas holiday.

Unshelved

Got stuck in the RDS taking part in the Aer Lingus Young Scientist Exhibition. Because we were inside all day we didn't realise how bad the snow was. I think the competition was abandoned in the end that year.

Darwin

I remember building igloos out the front of the estate (lived in Firhouse, Dublin in those days) and having massive snowball fights with other kids on the road. One of the days my father decided to trudge through the snow to work in Walkinstown which took him a few hours over the fields - no M50 back then!. I think he has some decent pics of the event, if he can find them I will upload them here.

up for anything

I was living in Waterford in 1982. I don't remember any snow let alone big snow. Was it only in certain parts of the country?

Day Lewin

up for anything wrote: »

I was living in Waterford in 1982. I don't remember any snow let alone big snow. Was it only in certain parts of the country?

The East and Midlands were worst hit because the snow came from the east

It was so cold in Co Wexford that a father and son died on Lake Tacumshane, a family duck-shooting trip that they never came home from.

Eastern Co Waterford was cut off from communications for a week.

Gonzo

I was only 9 when the blizzard of 1982 hit. I remember going to bed getting ready for school, next morning woke up, opened the door and snow fell into the hallway!

My memory is vague to how long it actually snowed for but I remember walking with my mum to the shops which was in a westerly direction and the walk wasn't so bad, but on the way back was in an easterly direction and the pain from snow and ice hitting my face in high winds was something else, probably the only moment in my life where I wasn't enjoying snow!.

Once the skies cleared the depth of the snow was unreal, I remember walking on ice packed snow drifts with cars underneath which were standed and abandoned on our country laneway. I think I was off school for about 2 weeks. Last year's Storm Emma was similar in that we had snow drifts but the drifting in 1982 was far more serious/widespread and the snow lasted much longer.

A video on YouTube shows the snow in Ratoath, only a few km from where I live. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLzvI_wxW3U

typhoony

living up in Sandyford my memories living in a non-centrally heated house how cold it was, there was one day it never got above -5c on our outside thermometer, it was'nt much warmer inside, I can remember we had ice on the inside of the single glaze windows. I was out all day in the snow all the kids in the neighbourhood would be out also, car sledding was a game we played, it involved sneaking up behind the cars leaving the estate, grabbing hold of the rear bumper and crouch down and sledding as far as the car would take us or till the driver noticed. also I remember the sky, actually the clouds were a permanent orange glow.

francois

I was 16 when it hit-we got 2 weeks extra off school, just before we were due to go back-As the above poster mentioned, I remember sledding, though even in Kilmacud, where we were, some of the snow was nearly 2 feet deep.
Basic supplies also ran out, though there was no panic buying of milk and bread like there was last Feb/March, people just made do and enjoyed the break.
A few friends of mine were actually hostelling in Wicklow at the time, and were stuck, relying on a helicopter to drop supplies to the youth hostel they were in.

Gaoth Laidir

Gonzo wrote: »

I was only 9 when the blizzard of 1982 hit. I remember going to bed getting ready for school, next morning woke up, opened the door and snow fell into the hallway!

My memory is vague to how long it actually snowed for but I remember walking with my mum to the shops which was in a westerly direction and the walk wasn't so bad, but on the way back was in an easterly direction and the pain from snow and ice hitting my face in high winds was something else, probably the only moment in my life where I wasn't enjoying snow!.

Once the skies cleared the depth of the snow was unreal, I remember walking on ice packed snow drifts with cars underneath which were standed and abandoned on our country laneway. I think I was off school for about 2 weeks. Last year's Storm Emma was similar in that we had snow drifts but the drifting in 1982 was far more serious/widespread and the snow lasted much longer.

A video on YouTube shows the snow in Ratoath, only a few km from where I live. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLzvI_wxW3U

I was just 7 not far from you (Garristown, 120 m amsl) and remember being able to almost touch the telegraph wires when standing on top of some of the drifts along the road. Cars buried for I don't know how long. My sister went across the fields to the shop but got lost in the whiteout and my father only found her a couple of hours later. Last March was the closest I've witnessed since.

galvo_clare

I was 14 and we borrowed a cousin’s house for a weekend in Dublin.
For some reason we mustn’t have expected the snow and nothing in the house but flour. My ever resourceful mother made scones and that was all we had to eat for a day.

The neighbours turned out to be mostly teachers so weren’t bothered that the estate was completely snowed in but when they realised we had to get back to Clare everybody mucked in to dig us out and get us to the road.
I remember travelling down in convoy with another Clare car (an Alfasud)! God knows how we knew we were both in Dublin in pre
mobile days.

Happy memories.

madmaggie

I walked to the local shop a mile away. Halfway there I was met by a wall of snow across the road. I had to climb up on the ditch, cross two fields, then climb down the ditch back onto the road. Repeated the same on the way home. Some of the local men were standing around chatting, looking at me, not one offered a hand.

alexmalalex

All I remember, being 2 or 3, is that the snow level was higher than I was...

Flesh Gorden

Here's a link to that PDF someone tried to attach to their post:

https://www.met.ie/cms/assets/uploads/2017/08/Jan1982_snow.pdf

_Brian

Walked daily four miles to our out farm and we were poking sticks down through the snow to see where the buried cars were under where we were walking.

I know there was quite a while of drudgery feeding cattle without the tractor as it couldn’t manage the snow at all.

To Alcohol

Had to abandon the car outside Goff’s on the N7 and walk the rest of the way home to Naas. Came back a day later to see if it could be dug out but for the life of me I couldn’t find the car.

With the depth of the snow drift it took some time before realising I was standing on the car!

Think it was the drifting of the snow in 82 that made it so memorable.