Storm Emma uncovered hidden aspects of community spirit and unleashed viral craic, as the documentary Eye of the Storm - airing tonight - reveals. Paddy Kehoe reports.
Brendan Courtney, early on in tonight's documentary, says it best. "The fact that the leader of our country gave us a weather warning made me think... uh..okay!"
Yes, we all knew it was serious when our Taoiseach appeared on our screens warning us in mildly sepulchral tones that we were about to see the mother of all snow-storms. Minister Eoghan Murphy told us to go home at four o'clock on the Thursday and to stay at home, period.
Nothing prepared us for all this white stuff. Storm Ophelia had been over-hyped, one lad thought, Emma was gonna be the real deal, as his pal observed.
Tonight's film cuts to brief footage of a rain-deluged Teresa Mannion declaiming from her very damp perch those immortal words: "Don't make unnecessary journeys." That particular wet chapter was in the ha'penny place compared with what Emma was about to do.
And do, it did. Eye of The Storm opens with mock-heroic tone and suitably stirring music but as well as bringing us the 86-year old granny who went sledding with her grandson, the documentary recalls random acts of human kindness. Not so random maybe, there was on-the-hoof decision-making too. A huge collective effort that one might have associated with East Germany in the 1970s saw the village of Sallins in County Kildare shovelled clean by the population.
"I think we're more operational than you guys here, " a woman with a British accent said delicately, but the national volunteering spirit and the meitheal factor suggested otherwise.
A wedding took place - after all - in Trim, County Meath as the rest of the county ground to a halt. It happened only because kindly neighbours handed over their four-wheelers and jeeps to help transport the guests to and from where they wanted to be. Then to add the crowning flourish, the fire engine came to escort the wedding party to Trim Castle.
Bernard O'Shea gets to the heart of the craic aspect and those vari-coloured Alerts ( "Red means 'Get Bread!") There were no bread riots to rival the recent Nutella scrap in France, none that your writer heard of anyway, though it came close no doubt. Breadmen's lives were clearly in danger, according to O'Shea. Carrying a loaded tray was clearly a fraught business in the environs of any supermarket or corner store.
People were stocking heavily on wellies, kerosene, diesel, and, er, heavy woollen stockings. A baby was born in what turned out to be a remarkably easy birth at the side of the road, thanks to the endeavours of two remarkable ambulance men. The story of the mother hare rescued at the airport perimeter as she too was about to give birth is an other example of the strange serendipity of it all, and indeed how the kindness of strangers can sometimes save the day so sweetly.
Oh and everybody in the slimmed-down Late Late Show audience went home with a large pan sliced of Brennan's Bread. No doubt they savoured every crumb given the scarcity of such mannah.
And then wondered where they might get a sup of milk for the tea.
Eye of the Storm, RTÉ One, 10.15pm
