DONEGAL POSTMAN Michael Gallagher knew his prediction about a white Christmas would come true when he had to abandon his Christmas Eve deliveries because of snow and ice.
The 60-year-old postman from Glenfin forecast a white Christmas a full fortnight before it actually happened. He did so not by tracking weather fronts or through satellite technology, but by the time-honoured means of observing the signs of nature.
Mr Gallagher based his predictions on the observations of an old woman who said when the Blue Stack mountains were bathed in an orange glow from the winter sun, a prolonged cold snap was on its way.
Cattle and sheep were hungry, the blackbirds were coming very close to the houses and the holly berries were picked clean on the bushes: more signs, Mr Gallagher said, that a white Christmas was imminent.
He said it was “just beautiful” to wake up on Christmas morning and find that his forecast had come to pass, but the credit belonged to those from previous generations who had passed their weather lore down to him.
“Past generations lived by the signs and what was around them, which was nature. They didn’t have television or radio to tell them,” he said.
Not being a gambling man, Mr Gallagher eschewed the prospects of making a tidy sum if he had bet on a white Christmas, but his successful forecasting will do no harm for sales of his book, Traditional Weather Signs.
Mr Gallagher is forecasting more of the same weather over the new year. “I can see it getting even worse,” he said.
