ONE explosive event dominated the tale of Irish weather in 2025 – the most violent recorded storm/hurricane ever to hit the island on the Thursday evening/Friday morning of January 23/24 last.

Both the Connacht GAA Dome at Bekan, Ballyhaunis and the Galway Lawn Tennis Dome in Salthill were flattened by Éowyn, while at one point in the aftermath of the storm, 768,000 ESB customers across the country were without power.

The Met Éireann Weather Station at Mace Head near Carna in south-west Conamara had the highest gust ever recorded in Ireland in the early hours of January 24 –114.5mph or just over 184km/h.

Prior to that, the strongest wind recorded in Ireland had been during Hurricane Debbie on Saturday, September 16 1961, at Malin Head, Donegal, with a speed of 113mph or nearly 182km/h on the anemometer. The lowest ever pressure reading in Ireland, 938 millibars, was also recorded at Belmullet during Éowyn.

Parts of the West, and especially the Conamara region, were particularly hard hit during Éowyn with power and water outages while even the emergency 999 and 112 telephone connections were knocked out of action for a number of days.

One fatality was recorded in Donegal during the storm while another person lost their life in Scotland – Storm Éowyn was also linked to at least other two fatalities in Ireland over the following days.

A powerful Atlantic jet stream fuelled Éowyn, but early January also brought heavy snows to the south and west of Ireland from Saturday, January 4 to Monday, January 6 . . . but the memory of the month, and indeed the year for everyone, will have been the storm.

Following the destruction caused by Éowyn, a quite mild and very dry spring period followed, with rainfall totals well below the long term average [LTA] for the four-month period of February to May [inclusive].

The Athenry Met Éireann Station set an Irish temperature record for April of 25.9°C on the 30th day of our fourth month, while May continued to be warm, dry, calm and sunny.

While June was another warmer than average month it heralded a real change in terms of rainfall amounts, with 165mms [6.5 inches] recorded in Athenry – the wettest place in Ireland for our sixth month.

Despite the higher than average rainfall statistics for the summer of ’25, we still enjoyed some extended dry and sunny spells – June through to August – with the rainfall tending to arrive in more concentrated bursts.

That wetter trend for the West of Ireland continued into the autumn/winter period as well – with lakes, rivers and streams full to capacity while fields have been saturated over recent months. November was particularly wet – close on 190mms [7.5 inches] in many parts of the West of Ireland.

The 2025-2026 storm season began on October 3 with Storm Amy; followed by Claudia [unusually coming up from the Canaries] on Friday, November 14th; and Bram on Tuesday, December 9th – but none of those, thankfully, came anywhere near the ferocity of Éowyn.

Abbeyknockmoy weather recorder and farmer, Brendan Geraghty, said that without any shadow of doubt, the major weather event of the year was Storm Éowyn towards the end of January.

“It really was a ferocious storm, leaving a huge trail of destruction in its wake, flattening trees and whole areas of forestry in its path.

“After that, we went on to have a very dry spring, which for a time hampered growth, but there was a great recovery through the summer with some extended drier periods, as well as the rainfall we needed for delivering strong grass yields.

“It was a good summer from a farming point of view – there were really good crops of silage and hay, with soils still staying dry well into September.

“Since then, the rains have arrived with a vengeance, and everywhere is saturated – the only consolation is, that this is mid-winter, when we expect the wetter conditions,” said Brendan Geraghty.

Pictured: AFTER THE STORM  . . . This woman out for a walk with her dog on the afternoon of January 24th, 2025, close to Pearse Stadium in Salthill, surveying one of the many trees flattened by Storm Éowyn. PHOTO: JOE O’SHAUGHNESSY.