IT WAS with sadness that we learned some days ago of the death of Dr P. J. Moriarty. I was able to recall with pleasure, however, that Dr Moriarty wrote to Weather Eye a year or two ago, and it was a measure of the man's versatility that he provided the material for what many were to remark on as one of the more interesting columns in this series.
Dr Moriarty referred to a previous Weather Eye about the "Barisal guns", the name given to mysterious booming sounds heard near the sea or other areas of water in many parts of the world from time to time. They first came to general notice towards the end of the last century near the town of Barisal on the Ganges Delta - hence the name. The sounds have been described, to quote one source, as curious aerial or subterranean detonations", or by another witness as "a dull muffled boom, as of distant cannon". But perhaps their most intriguing characteristic is that they have no obvious explanation.
Dr Moriarty was kind enough to enclose an extract from Smith's Natural & Civil History of Kerry, a treatise written in 1756 which alluded to a similar phenomenon in Dr Moriarty's native county.
Referring to the coastal townland of Minegahane, Smith reported that "the most remarkable curiosity of the place is the prodigious noise made at certain seasons by the sea, somewhat like the firing of a cannon, which may be heard at great distance, this generally precedes a change of the wind and weather and frequently happens towards the approach of a storm. It was probably such a roaring of the sea as this at Minegahane that gave rise to the fable of Scylla mentioned by the poets".
Smith went on to vent some curious meteorological theories on the origins of storms: "During the continuance of these noises, the surface of the water is often elevated in an unusual manner, and upon the subsiding of the sea a storm generally succeeds; from which phenomenon it is not unlikely that these tempests are caused by eruptions from the bowels of the earth forcing their way through the body of this tempestuous element which afterwards, flying about in the circumambient atmosphere, frequently occasion stormy commotions.
Since Smith's description of the Kerry booms predates the Barisal guns by more than a century, Dr Moriarty went on in his letter to suggest that perhaps the phenomenon should be re-christened "the Minegahane guns". Be that as it may, Weather Eye, alas, will receive no more tips from Dr. P. J. Moriarty.