It hit a whopping 25 degrees in Ireland.

I wanted to write about something meaty but everything I started felt meh, and anyway it was hot outside. So I went for a swim in the wee lake. And when I got back I knew exactly what the world needed to hear about.

Hot Shit Been Going Down
It’s been hot here in Ireland for weeks. And it’s still hot. It’s been so hot that we’ve been leaving windows open at night—in April and May—in Ireland? WTF? Leaving windows open has predictable consequences. Insects smell our sweaty late night flesh and eat and itch us before having funky insect sex thereby breeding even more critters in a vicious carnal cycle of hump n itch but it’s either suffer that or slowly melt in the bedsheets.

The Drawer Has Been Opened
I cracked open the shorts drawer. Yes, seriously. Herself noticed my delighted swagger and suggested we take the kids to the beach in Donegal. The anticipation in the car reminded me of the good old days 40 years ago except with more elbow room this time. I have six siblings and if you hadn’t fractured ribs arriving at the beach, you had them when you got back home.

Perennially-White-Skin
We surfed and swam and ate ice cream and made sandcastles and watched children dig deep holes around the tyres of their own car as the tide advanced and while the father doze in the front seat. It was all glorious fun for those mischievous pranksters until Dozy realised what was happening. Glorious fun then too and no child was grievously harmed in the ensuing ass-whooping.
The beach-cum-car park in Rossnowlagh also turned out to be a “safe-space” for those with ghostly pale knees and varicose-vein-bedecked legs to let it all hang out. In fact, I suspect Lynn parked up slap bang in a meet-up of the Perennially-White-Skinned Society of South Donegal. Many elderly ladies were airing ankles which hadn’t seen the light of day since Pope John Paul II came to Ireland in 1979. Back then a third of the Irish population turned up to see him give Mass in Dublin and afterwards there was a baby-boom. Coincidence? I think not. That’s when Mass delivered more than communion with The Christ.

Statistical Anomalies
Ireland ain’t Texas, so extended periods of dry heat are unnatural – I would have used the word unseasonal but that suggests there’s a season in Ireland where continually dry and hot periods are normal. There’s not. This – whatever is happening outside – is a statistical anomaly. But even statistical anomalies are becoming less statistically anomalous. We were nearly blown to France by a monstrous Atlantic storm in January and then we all nearly died of rainfall exposure/drowning in February and March. So-called “experts” say islands in the Pacific will be the first to be abandoned due to climate change but I think we’ll win that prestige.

How We All Nearly Drowned
The sneaky rains crept up one dark night in early February when we were all watching Telly Bingo. It wasn’t dramatic ‘wash-away-your-wheelchair-bound-uncle’ type of monsoon rain. Just the familiar, slow, depressing, never-ending rain filling gutters, streams, shoes, socks, lakes, trouser pockets, fields and on and on with the water level rising higher and higher. The amazing thing (on a pedantic level at least) is that it only rained twice in the whole period: once for a month and a half solid before stopping to reload for a half hour and then starting again for another endless fortnight or three.

Low-Lying Areas
Many parents in low-lying areas had started sending their kids to school with an emergency pair of swim goggles and togs just in case the final ‘day-of-judgement-deluge’ came before home time. Villagers in a rural Cork hamlet were treated for webbing that had begun sprouting between their toes. And then the day after St Patricks the Government formally approached the IMF to request the construction of a roof over the entire country. It was a grim few weeks but thankfully the acrimonious Atlantic rains began to slow and eventually stop. We were all left drained, watery and soft like potatoes boiled too long.

Exit Rain
Enter mixed conditions and then before you know it someone in Limerick puts up a picture on social media of this yellowy-orange ball on a blue background with rumours circulating about it being THE SUN. The far-left dismissed it as a late and insensitive April Fool’s joke while the far-right blamed the immigrants for sharing the picture in the first place. Lo and behold it turns out it was actually THE SUN and it was above the entire country.

Heat Followed Sun
As night follows day, heat soon followed sun. And it’s been not only hot since but also very very dry. Sticky-mouth dry. Dry in April and on into May. Now the Government spokesman for “The Weather” is on the news every night advising owners of pig farms and young children to ‘slap on the suncream twice daily’ and kindly reminding us all to avoid ‘using binoculars to look at the yellow yoke’ if we don’t want to join the two-year waiting list for an optician’s appointment. They say a country shouldn’t be ruled by fear but there’s nothing like the thought of joining an Irish queue to knock sense into the masses.
The other noteworthy occurrence has been a new group on Facebook consisting of begrudgers and sneers who are rotating visits to Dublin Airport. Their raison d’être is to jeer at anyone returning from foreign holidays and to make such snide comments as, “Sure the weather was great while you were gone. What took ye away?” as well as the more inflammatory, “Ye’ve more money than sense ye bollix.”

Yes, we’re all gone mad with the wee bit of heat in Ireland. As Keats wrote,

“They think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.”

Then Someone Said
It was all going great until some prick somewhere outside Derry posted (yes, he put it in fucking writing!!!) on the platform formerly known as Twitter, “This can’t last. The fields are dry and we could do with a drop of rain.” And the first reply to that inanity was, “Ye know, ye’d get sick of the sun after a while.” Speak for yourself, artic penguin.

And with that every cloud hanging over the Atlantic turned on its heel and started moving back towards Ireland. Rain in vast angry heavy threatening quantities is imminent. But don’t worry about me. I’m prepared for anything. Until next time…