In each life there are moments that with hindsight we realize were major milestones on our journey. Big or small, they retain a special kind of clarity that often times only becomes evident much later on. That’s the way life goes–its personal and happens in the small moments we don’t notice at the time.

But then there are the major events that shake your world on a scale that you never expected. Suddenly this world of teeming humanity is connected through one moment.

You might remember exactly where you were when JFK was assassinated, or when the NY Trade Center Towers were attacked on 9/11. And your moment connects you to everyone else who lived through that day.

You might recall the global mood at the end of WWII, or have personally been caught up in the record breaking storm that was Hurricane Katrina, or the overwhelming isolation and uncertainty that we all endured during the COVID19 Pandemic.

For myself, I still vividly recall the aftermath of the Blizzard of 1979, when my mum and I woke up in New Hampshire to find ourselves literally iced in to our home, and our doors and windows blocked in by towering piles of snow. We had to use butter knives to chip the ice out from around the edge of the front door and then struggled to clear the snowdrift without getting it all in the house. I was 5, and when we did finally make a break for freedom I was amazed that all of the snow was so much taller than I was.

These watershed events are powerful things, they unite people who may not have thought they had anything in common, they can break down walls and shed light on social definitions and mores of the time. They can also be a supremely useful tool in researching family history. They establish place, age, and context.

For my County Louth ancestors, indeed for all living in Ireland in 1839, the collective consciousness was forever imprinted by a freak hurricane that rampaged across the whole island on what had been a relatively normal day in January.

Called “The Big Wind” by historians and locals alike (check out the wikipedia page about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Big_Wind), this was a beyond unseasonable weather event that left no part of Ireland untouched. It paid absolutely no attention to political, religious or socio-economic boundaries. It blew, froze, lifted, demolished and forever changed the landscape of this beautiful land, and the psyches of all who dwelt there.

The Big Wind was so significant, in fact, that it became a tool used by local and national agencies to corroborate a person’s legal age. Formal registration of births only started in Ireland in 1864, so births were not necessarily recorded at all, and baptisms were generally only recorded by the local priest prior to this time. People really did not have a clear idea of when they were born, but they could use their memories of the Big Wind to help census takers estimate their current age. When confronted with someone who was unclear on their exact age, Census takers were known to ask “Do you remember the Big Wind?”