While the rest of us were hiding indoors with a mug of tea and cosy blankets, these Munster farmers and their dogs were working hard to rescue sheep that had been buried under heavy snowdrifts.
Videos show hill sheep farmers in the Galtee Mountains locating and digging out the buried sheep using shovels, before pulling the poor animals out of the snow by hand. Sheepdogs helped lead the farmers to the stricken sheep, as seen in the videos recorded by Ann Drake.
You can see the two videos below:
The clips were shared online by BBC Weather presenter Barra Best and JP McNamara from Cork’s 96FM – and they illustrate the extreme conditions that farmers across North Cork, Limerick and Tipperary have been dealing with over the last week, as temperatures plunged to -7C overnight in some areas.
Alongside efforts by Cork County Council and the Defence Forces, farmers have been out assisting residents across North Cork. In Dulhallow farmer Mike O’Sullivan used his tractor to rescue a milk truck stranded in the snow, while farmers cleared the way for families stuck in Lisgriffin.
Mallow artist Orla O’Regan said: “”In these situations, people are so dependent on the farmers to help out. The isolated rural areas can be completely forgotten about, everything was at a standstill. It was wonderful to see the humanity in people.”
Even as temperatures rise today, Cork County Council has warned of dangerous conditions in north and northeast Cork: “The rising temperatures means that lying snow on roofs in towns and villages is liable to fall on footpaths in parts of the north-west and north Cork this afternoon and across the weekend.”
Met Éireann’s latest forecast for Munster says that we can look forward to highs of 7C by tomorrow – rising to a more bearable 10C in the week.