Big Snow 1947: Death, isolation and entire towns snowed in

Amid the coldest stint of weather in living memory, the water-filled quarry at Sundrive Road, Kimmage, had frozen over. Try as they did, gardaí couldn’t keep the local children from playing on the ice. “A soon as they chased the children away,” one officer said, “they returned by another route.”

Some were saved, but Anthony Burke , Christopher Byrne and the youngest casualty, eight-year-old Edward O'Toole, died in the freezing water.Byrne was close to being rescued. Someone had thrown him a rope, which he had successfully grasped. With his other hand, he had hold of a young girl who had also fallen in.report, he"caught the rope in one hand and took hold of the girl in the water with the other hand. He sank and let go the rope.

The quarry incident was just one tragedy associated with the first quarter of 1947, when Ireland's weather was marked by freezing temperatures, sustained snowfall and a fuel crisis that crippled the country for weeks. Communication lines were disabled. Transport effectively stopped as railway lines were blocked by 6-foot snowdrifts, according to reports in“Worst blizzard for 25 years hits Ireland,” is the headline on the front page of this newspaper on February 26th that year.

By the beginning of March, a CIÉ rescue envoy was sent from Dublin into snowbound areas in Connacht to bring provisions. The rescue team, made up of 20 men, were penetrating a route through the blocked roads to Ballina. As they passed through towns, in many cases, they were the first vehicles seen for a fortnight.

“The story of the Doyles is typical of the plight of many families in the ‘forgotten’ areas of Wicklow,” said the report, adding that a local resident said the period had “been blackest five weeks in the history of the district.”

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