Saint Brigid wins out against the met office

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column

Michael Commane

On the last Monday of January a woman showed me a photo of the first daffodil in her garden this year. It stood there all on its own but she assured me there were signs of other daffodils about the place. She was so delighted with her new arrival she emailed a photo of it to her daughter, who moved to Australia last year.

The previous day I spotted in the garden of the hospital where I work bunches of daffodils. I have no idea what the weather might bring us in the next five or six weeks but I have seen with my own eyes the first signs of better days ahead. And I can confirm that Lá Fheile Bríde was last Thursday. 

I can still remember my mother getting excited the first day my father arrived home from work in the daylight at 4.45pm. I mark the occasion every year. 

Once it’s bright at 4.45pm I know things are happening. Some weeks ago getting off a train in Tralee at 5pm I noticed how bright it was. The previous day it was dark in Dublin at that time. The sun shines a good 15 to 20 minutes longer in Kerry than in Dublin. Of course that means the Dubliners see the sun earlier in the morning than the Kerry people.

Between Wexford and Dublin there is a short five minutes of a difference.

I think it’s fair to say we’re not great in Ireland in keeping standard international rules but I have to admit it is great fun and so typically Irish that our spring begins on February 1, the Feast of St Brigid. 

The tradition seems to stem from a traditional Irish festival called Imbolc, which was linked to the lambing season, rebirth and St Brigid.

This year the astronomical spring begins on March 20 but the meteorological spring always begins on March 1, ending on May 31 and that’s the calendar to which Met Éireann abides.

And here’s one for you, I never quite know whether or not to spell it spring or Spring. These days I go for spring.

When it comes to explaining matters or solving problems, Ireland has that innate ability of seeing everything in terms of an Irish solution to an Irish problem. Remember how Charlie Haughey coined the phrase?

I like to think of spring as beginning on February 1, it puts a spring, oops, in my step and it can at times psych me up when it comes to getting out of the bed in the morning.

I’ve been forever mesmerised how there has never been a short story, a play, or skit, or something written about the torture it can be to get out of bed in the morning, especially on dark winter days. Maybe there has and I’ve missed it.

Those 10/15 minutes before we have to get out of the bed, the hell it is knowing we have to get up and leave the warmth of our bed.

But spring has that great ability of making everything in our lives a little easier and more pleasurable.

It’s all around us, it’s free, available to everyone and I hope we can all make the most of it in 2024, even when the world is in such a strange and worrying place. Get ready to make the best of it.