It’s a bright and busy day on a visit to Johnstown Castle in Co Wexford. Recent statistics from Met Éireann crown the site of the 19th-century castle as Ireland’s sunniest place. It has seen the highest annual total of sunshine in the last five years, with a daily average of 4.35 hours a day in 2021.
More dramatically, perhaps, Met Éireann’s annual climate statement for last year found the highest number of daily sunshine hours recorded in 2021 was 15.3 hours at both Johnstown Castle on Saturday July 17th, and Valentia Observatory in Co Kerry on Friday June 30th.
The sunny southeast has well earned its name and reputation as Ireland’s most temperate corner. “Johnstown Castle generally has the highest annual recorded sunshine hours from all our sunshine recording stations,” says Paul Moore, Met Éireann meteorologist.
“Looking over the last five years, Johnstown Castle recorded 1,587 hours in 2021; the next highest was Cork Airport with 1,520,” he says.
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By way of comparison, annual sunshine totals were lowest at Malin Head, Co Donegal, with 1,237.6 hours, but Cork Airport and Casement Aerodrome in Co Dublin have been competing with Johnstown Castle in the sunshine stakes in recent years.
Ireland’s sunniest location is home not only to a gothic revival castle but also some 120 acres of gardens, woodlands and lake walks. The scenic open space — coupled with as close to reliable sunshine as can reasonably be expected in Ireland - attracts visitors all year round. This makes the historic site, which also hosts the Irish Agricultural Museum, an important tourist attraction for the region, says Matt Wheeler, curator of Johnstown Castle and Museum.
June is probably one of the best months to visit, “because everything is looking its best”, Wheeler says, adding: “You can see the seasons changing throughout the year.”
Wexford’s relatively mild year-round climate is a bonus, he says. Rare rainy days do not have too much of an impact, but extremes of weather in either direction are not particularly helpful.
“Thankfully, the weather doesn’t affect us too much unless we’re having a really wet day. That would have an impact on the visitor coming through the door. If it’s a generally mixed day, with a bit of sunshine and the odd shower, it doesn’t affect us because we’ve got the indoor and outdoor attractions.
“In the early part of this year we had a succession of storms. When we have high winds we close the site because it’s too dangerous with all the trees. So that would have a negative effect on our business because we can’t open if we get weather warnings for winds.
“Because we’re in Co Wexford and we’ve got beautiful beaches on our doorstep, if it gets really warm, say 25 and above, which doesn’t happen that often, naturally people prefer to go to the beach.”
The site attracts locals and visitors, including active retirement groups, domestic coach tours and international visitors, who come individually or as part of group tours.
The generally sunny habitat is also attractive to local wildlife, says Wheeler.
“We catch bees here. There’s wild honey bees that live on the buildings here and we try to catch them and look after them, and they look after us and provide honey for us which we sell in the shop.”
As well as the bees, peacocks, foxes, rabbits and hares are regularly spotted on the estate.
“We detect all the different animals on the estate here. We’ve got these wildlife trail cameras that work day and night. Whenever an animal goes past it triggers the camera and since we’ve had them dotted around the estate and installed in 2015, we’ve detected every Irish land mammal on the site here.”