Connemara family escapes as lightning strike burns home

A Connemara family has described their fortunate escape when their house was hit by lightning and set on fire yesterday morning.

Fiona Lydon was at home with her husband Pat and 23-year-old son at Tooreena near Renvyle at about 10.30am when lightning struck the roof of their bungalow, as the gale force winds of the previous night were subsiding.

"My 19-year-old daughter wasn't at home at the time as she is studying at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT)," Ms Lydon told The Irish Times.

“I heard the thunder getting worse, and there was then an unmerciful bang and the phone socket flew across the room,” she says. “I thought a window had blown in and thought I was standing on glass, and I shouted to my son.

“It was then that I heard a sound resembling pouring sand just above our heads, and realised it was fire,” she said. “The attic was alight, and all I grabbed was the phone to ring the fire brigade, and we were out the door.

“My husband’s brother is next door and neighbours came and were brilliant,” she says. “Everyone rallied around.”

Three units of Clifden fire brigade and Letterfrack gardaí received the alert. However, the house was substantially damaged in the blaze.

“Everything was gutted, and where it isn’t burnt, it’s smoke and water,” Ms Lydon says. “It’s a house we built ourselves, and we had to leave everything behind, but we are very lucky.”

Fire services said it was a rare but not infrequent occurrence. In July 2009, lighting struck a dormer house in Gorumna, Lettermore, in south Connemara, and a woman and her 19-year-old son managed to escape before the fire spread throughout the dwelling.

In September 2010, an agricultural co-op in Abbeyknockmoy, Co Galway, caught fire after a thunder and lightning storm. A former GAA inter-county referee, Michael Bodkin, was credited with ensuring nearby houses were evacuated and that no-one was injured in the extensive blaze.