Sir, – Diarmaid Ferriter used evidence from the 18th century during his reflection on climate change (Opinion, November 3rd), highlighting how “literary” sources can provide singular insights into the past.
For instance, WB Yeats and James Joyce each provided important commentary on the impact of extreme weather.
In Ulysses, the narrator described the impact of the “drought” of 1904: the “seed won’t sprout,” the “rosy buds all gone brown,” with the “fields athirst, very sadcoloured”.
This harsh drought even diminished the impact of the “big wind of last February a year that did havoc the land so pitifully”. It was but “a small thing beside this barrenness”.
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Yeats also referenced this wind, finishing his book In the Seven Woods in “the year of the big wind, 1903″. He stated that he “made some of these poems walking about among the Seven Woods”, before the big wind “blew down so many trees, & troubled the wild creatures, & changed the look of things”.
Great writers reveal more than just changing emotions! – Yours, etc,
PATRICK CALLAN,
Portmarnock, Co Dublin.
