re burning stuff
"Ooooh, not allowed do that in Ireland (not that it stops farmers), terrible carbon footprint, burning plants."
Don't know wheer you are T - here in the West, the reason given is bird nesting seasons - the burning ban lasts from my to September
We're in the midst of a drought hosepipe bans and all
The weather has changed enormously over the last few years on the West Coast
I'm just finishing an article on local songs - one of just annotated described the norm at the beginning of the last century thus (with my note)
Jim


The Bad Year, John Lyons, Newmarket-on-Fergus Recorded 1978
Carroll Mackenzie Collection
It would have been surprising not to find songs commenting on the weather, considering the agricultural nature of West Clare
This song was included in a published collection of Clare songs in 1976, ‘Ballads of the County Clare, edited by Seán Ó Cillin, (now, sadly, unavailable)The songs is credited as anonymous and the tune given in the collection is ‘Mountains of Mourne, though this is not the singer uses here

As I stand on the land and I look at the sky,
And I watched the rain pour, I could lie down and die.
The meadow’s a pool and the turf’s gone to suds,
Sure I hadn’t the heart to go digging the spuds.

The hens got the gapes they gave up laying eggs,
When the pig tried to grunt he got weak in the legs.
The back yard is a pool and the garden’s a bog,
O the poor farmer’s life isn’t fit for a dog.

Well I got wrinkled and old and my hair it turned grey,
While the torrents of rain made manure of my hay.
The cows they went dry ‘twould bring blood from a stone,
To watch the poor creatures go all skin and bone.

The child got the measles, me wife got upset,
Meself got the flu from me clothes getting wet.
Coughs and colds I contacted a crop of chill blains,
While me joints they swelled up with most terrible pains.

Ah but that’s over now for this year is a gift,
I’m a rich man at last by good farming and thrift.
It can rain, it can snow, it can blow a monsoon,
For I’m all for the caper above in Lisdoon.