The heavy rains claimed their second victim, it was revealed yesterday, following confirmation of the death of a bachelor farmer whose body was taken from a river near the village of Ballinderry, Co Tipperary.
The man apparently died on Sunday evening after toppling into a tributary of Lough Derg, near his home, when he was trying to retrieve his cap which had blown off in the gale force winds.
"It was just a freak accident," a Garda spokesman said.
The cap was caught in a tree and was still there the next morning when a search of the area was carried out by gardai and the man's neighbours. A post-mortem was carried out at Nenagh County Hospital yesterday after the body was discovered by a search party in the Ballyfinboy river on Monday morning. It had been swept downstream by the fast current following the heavy rain on Sunday but got caught in branches.
The dead man was named locally as Mr Michael Boyle (66). The bachelor farmer lived with his brother in Druminagh Lodge, about 1 1/2 miles from Ballinderry. He had been dropped off a hundred yards from his home after a fallen tree prevented the car he was in from going any farther. Residents in the area described him as a helpful person who lived quietly.
The Midwest region continued to experience dry conditions yesterday after the worst of the bad weather passed over on Monday morning.
Less than a millimetre of rain had fallen by midday at Shannon Airport, a Met Eireann spokesman said. Winds were blowing an average of force four, and gusting force seven, in what was described as typical November weather.
An Aer Rianta spokesman said there had been no weather problems at the airport although there had been some flight diversions on Sunday and Monday from Dublin, Cork and Galway. A spokesman for Shannon Ferries said the Killimer-Tarbert service had continued to run on schedule.
Elsewhere in the region, the localised floods continued to abate. A spokesman at Thurles Garda station said there were patchy floods but nothing serious to report. "There has been some flooding on minor roads but nothing exorbitant," he said.