BSW3 13. Donegal's famous postman

Speaker: Michael GallagherFrom the Bluestack Way Part 3 playlist. Directions You'll be carrying down the mountain. Once you get to the pathway, you'll be turning left following the course of the Owenroe river. If you were to turn right and walk for four miles, you'd be in the heart of the Croaghs.  One of the great ambassadors of the county is affable postman, Michael Gallagher, renowned for his uncanny ability to forecast the weather by a careful observation of wildlife and the elements, a skill he attributes to the people of Na Cruacha Gorma in the deepest part of the Finn valley. At the extreme end of his daily itinerary lies 'Na Cruacha Gorma' - the Croaghs, as it is called. A sparsely populated area, it is one of the most inaccessible parts of Ireland, where electricity only arrived in 1975, but it is here that Michael met people whose vast repertoire of folklore seemed to be unending. Much of the folklore has been recorded by folklorists not only from our own country, but from as far afield as Switzerland, Germany, Iceland and North America.'  It was from conversing in their native language with the people of this area that he first became interested in weather forecasting all those years ago. As he says himself: -'Most of the people from na Cruacha could forecast the weather accurately for a month or a season in advance and even a year ahead at times. They had such a knowledge of nature, learned from their daily struggle with the elements that they believed each feature of God's Creation was linked by them with climatic conditions. The knowledge of what we call 'book learning' was sparse but they had a rare wealth of lore and wisdom that was a source of amazement to all who came in contact with them. These, coupled with their natural vitality, enabled them to eke out a fairly comfortable living for themselves on their mountain farms in a remote area without the benefits of modern equipment.  As Michael writes ‘In the course of my travels, I discovered - among other things - that clocks and watches were almost unknown in that area until after World War One. Thus, the sun was their guideline. Incidentally, I never learned how they managed on the countless days when the sun refused to shine!'  Observing the animals around them, the folk of the Croaghs would tell you that a dog eating grass was a sign of a change in the weather, that a fox crying on a Winter's evening is a sure sign of heavy snow coming, that the crex crex cry of the curlew is a sign of rain as are crickets singing behind an open hearth fire. Folk here were able to ascertain accurate forecasts from the stars, the sun, clouds, damp, echos, mist, pains, thunder and trees. Curious terms such as 'the peck' and stacked jam jars in windows were other unorthodox methods of forecasting. In the audio, Michael marvels at the valley at his favourite time of the year.