Images ofStorm Ophelia

The Storm that Rocked Ireland October 2017

My Ireland Tour staff brave the storm to capture the moment Ireland is battered by winds speeds in excess of 156 km/h.

Storm Ophelia: We heard about it long before it hit us in the south coast of Ireland. It was originally categorised as a hurricane level storm due to make landfall around 0930 on Monday the 16th of Oct 2017. All of Ireland braced for its impact and so did we!

The eye of this storm travelled up the west coast while the south coast in particular was battered by huge waves and powerful winds. Since we are based on the south coast we acutely felt this. Schools, universities and hospitals were all closed along with public transport which came to a standstill.

With winds speeds in excess of 156 km/h recorded at Roaches Point (about 10 miles from our office) at the mouth of Cork Harbour and torrential rain falling across the country there was a strong risk of damage to property. Yikes! The last time we had a Storm like this in Ireland it was in 1961, her name was Debbie and she took 11 lives.

At the end of Ophelia there were 450,000 homes and businesses without electricity (including most of the My Ireland Tours office) and countless fallen trees and closed roads as well as untold damage to property. Thankfully none of us were hurt.