earth science

Night of the Big Wind

Night of the Big Wind is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Night of the Big Wind rather than just read about it. In short: The Night of the Big Wind (Irish: Oíche na Gaoithe Móire) was a powerful European windstorm that swept across what was then the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, beginning on the afternoon of 6 January 1839, causing severe damage to property and several hundred deaths. 20 to 25% of houses in north Dublin were damaged or destroyed, and 42 ships were wrecked. The storm attained a very low barometric pressur…

Key takeaways

Night of the Big Wind belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Night of the Big Wind to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Night of the Big Wind from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Night of the Big Wind (Irish: Oíche na Gaoithe Móire) was a powerful European windstorm that swept across what was then the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, beginning on the afternoon of 6 January 1839, causing severe damage to property and several hundred deaths. 20 to 25% of houses in north Dublin were damaged or destroyed, and 42 ships were wrecked. The storm attained a very low barometric pressure of 918–922 hPa (27.1–27.2 inHg) and tracked eastwards to the north of Ireland, with gusts of over 100 knots (185 km/h; 115 mph) before moving across the north of England to continental Europe, where it eventually dissipated. It has been described as probably worst storm to hit Ireland in the last 300 years. Liverpool also suffered severely, with many shipwrecks and much structural damage. 120 people died as a result of such accidents in the city alone. Two major shipwrecks resulted in damage of at least £500,000, equivalent to £45,000,000 in 2025.

Meteorological situation The storm developed after a period of unusual weather. Heavy snow, rare in Ireland, fell across the country on the night of 5 January, which was replaced on the morning of 6 January by an Atlantic warm front, which brought a period of complete calm with dense, motionless, cloud cover. Through the day, temperatures rose well above their seasonal average, resulting in rapid melting of the snow. Later on 6 January, a deep Atlantic depression began to move towards Ireland, forming a cold front when it collided with the warm air over land, bringing strong winds and heavy rain. First reports of stormy weather came from western County Mayo around noon, and the storm moved very slowly across the island through the day, gathering strength as it moved. By midnight the winds reached hurricane force.

Damage

Contemporary accounts of damage indicate that the Night of the Big Wind was the most severe storm to affect Ireland for many centuries. It is estimated that between 250 and 300 people lost their lives in the storm. Severe property damage was caused, particularly in Connacht, but also in Ulster and northern Leinster. Between a fifth and a quarter of all houses in Dublin suffered damage ranging from broken windows to complete destruction. Much of the inland damage was caused by a storm surge that drew large quantities of sea water inland, resulting in widespread flooding.

Even well-built buildings suffered structural damage, including new factories and military barracks. The newly constructed St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Derrytrasna was completely destroyed; one of the steeples of the Church of Ireland church in Castlebar was blown down, and a number of large country houses were unroofed. Among the poorly built homes of the poor, damage was more severe and many were completely destroyed. A total of 42 ships, most along the less sheltered west coast, were wrecked while unsuccessfully trying to ride out the storm: a majority of the recorded casualties occurred at sea. Stacks of hay and corn were widely destroyed, resulting in severe starvation among livestock in the following months.

Legacy

The Night of the Big Wind became part of Irish folk tradition. Irish folklore held that Judgment Day would occur on the Feast of the Epiphany, 6 January. Such a severe storm led many to believe that the end of the world was at hand. The Old Age Pensions Act 1908 introduced pensions for over-70s, but many Irish Catholics prior to the Registration of Births and Deaths (Ireland) Act 1863 had no birth registration. One of the questions used to establish proof of age was whether the applicant remembered the Night of the Big Wind. The question was also used as an aide-memoire for the 1901 census.

Related writing Irish language poems about the event include "Oíche na Gaoithe Móire" by Micheál de Búrc (c.1800–1881) and "Oíche Nollaig na mBan" by Seán Ó Ríordáin (1916–1977). The latter's title means "Night of Women's Christmas"; Women's Christmas is observed in Ireland on the feast of the Epiphany (6 January). The first verse describes a storm on that date (5 January) while the second recounts the poet's desire that his eventual death should coincide with a similar storm.

See also List of shipwrecks in January 1839 List of atmospheric pressure records in Europe Braer Storm

Notes

References

Further reading Carr, Peter (1993). The Night of the Big Wind. Belfast: White Row Press. ISBN 1-870132-50-5. Burke, Mary (2017). "Forgotten Remembrances: The 6 January "Women's Christmas" (Nollaig na mBan) and the 6 January 1839 "Night of the Big Wind" (Oíche na Gaoithe Móire) in "The Dead"". James Joyce Quarterly. 54 (3–4): 241–274. doi:10.1353/jjq.2017.0002. S2CID 165329787. Burke, Mary (12 January 2016). "An Irishwoman's Diary on the 'Night of the Big Wind' – January 6th, 1839". The Irish Times.

External links Topic: Winds records from the Irish Folklore Commission, in Irish and English, many relating to the Night of the Big Wind "Oiche na Gaoithe Moire...the night of the big wind" by Bridget Haggerty Irish Culture and Customs

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Night of the Big Wind

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Night of the Big Wind claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Night of the Big Wind before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Night of the Big Wind ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Night of the Big Wind

In research: Night of the Big Wind appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Night of the Big Wind in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Night of the Big Wind is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1830s disasters in Ireland, 1830s disasters in the United Kingdom, 1839 disasters, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Night of the Big Wind outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Night of the Big Wind in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Night of the Big Wind means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Night of the Big Wind out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Night of the Big Wind in simple terms?

Why does Night of the Big Wind matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Night of the Big Wind?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Night of the Big Wind.