Swanning around on a snowy winter’s day in 1984

If you don’t enjoy a fall of snow, look away now. Because I’m going to start with a romantic riff on how special it is when we haven’t had any for ages, and it falls from nowhere, and silently transforms the world into a place of mystery and magic.

But (it’s safe to starting reading again now, by the way) that’s the honeymoon period of snow. By the time this wintry photograph was taken in Ballsbridge, Dublin, on a gloomy Monday in January 1984, that early-infatuation phase had clearly worn off.

The road is pretty slushy, the footpath rather icky and there hasn’t been enough of a snowfall to make the bandy-looking bin at the far side of the street look like anything more mysterious or magical than, well, a bandy-looking bin.

Our photographer has, however, managed to capture a slice of mystique in the shape of this wandering swan which appears to be looking left and right – as well-brought-up Dublin 4 swans should – before it crosses the road.

Or maybe it’s looking at its two-legged companions and thinking, “You’ll never get to work if you don’t follow me, folks; the footpath is for geese.”

Joking aside, the swan’s predicament is serious. It’s pretty ironic, a photograph of a landscape where everything is white except a swan.

That same day, it was reported elsewhere in the paper that following the worst winter weather in two years, roads around the country were still hazardous (although for those of us who remember the record-breaking double-figure cold snaps of 2010 and 2011, the news that a low of – gasp! – minus two was recorded in Mullingar, Co Westmeath, might inspire a wry smile).

But nothing in any of the stories explains how this particular swan came to be covered in oil. Or whether anybody took pity on it and cleaned it up.