IT won’t come as a surprise to anyone but we’ve just endured our wettest ever July in Galway since records began.

And Athenry – out of the 25 Met Éireann recording stations dotted around the country – was the wettest place in Ireland during our seventh month.

Over the course of July’s 31 days, 224.1mms of rain (8.8 inches) was recorded at the Athenry station.

Three other Met Éireann stations in the West of Ireland – Mount Dillon (Roscommon), Knock Airport and Newport – also topped the 200mms mark for July.

In a curious rainfall quirk, one of the lowest totals across the country for July was at Mace Head in South-West Connemara – 111.8 mms or 4.4 inches.

Abbeyknockmoy weather recorder Brendan Geraghty, whose family rainfall records date back to 1941, had a July ’23 total of 7.48 inches or just under 200mms.

“It was the wettest July since our records began and that coming after our wettest March [2023] on record when I collected 7.65 inches (194mms) of rain.

“There were 20 wet days during the month of July with the biggest downpours coming on the 6th and 14th days of the month.

“Land is absolutely saturated with some of the more intensive dairy farmers now under pressure as regards grass rotations and in trying to get a second cut of silage,” said Brendan Geraghty.

The most intense rainfall of the month fell on the Friday and Saturday of April 14/15 with a total of 60mms (2.4 inches) recorded in the Athenry Station over that two-day period.

Temperature wise, after a warm June – three degrees above the Long Term Average (LTA) of 13.7°C – July 2023 was quite a cool month with an average temperature of 14.8°C, 0.7° below the LTA for the month.

Pictured: Brendan Geraghty: Our wettest ever July.