In a country where there is little need for rain dances, rainfall, the eternal topic of conversation for the Irish, has found another use. The rainfall data for 1999 have been put to music by a team at the University of Limerick (UL) after an artist began compiling the daily weather charts from The Irish Times.
Mr Sean Taylor, director of sculpture at Limerick Institute of Technology's School of Art & Design, said he had always been fascinated by weather charts ever since the time when, as a boy, he watched his father perusing them; they seemed like a different language.
"The original idea was to cut them out every day for 12 months and to do something with them," he says
But the Bliain le Baisteach (A Year with Rain) project took a twist when he met Mr Stephen O'Shea, who worked at Met Eireann in Shannon, and showed him a chart of a week's rainfall at the airport.
After collecting the rainfall data from more than 200 recording stations in the State, Mr Taylor began a collaborative project with Mr Mikael Fernstrom, a Swede, a computer technology designer at UL.
The rainfall data were converted into digital information, turned into a musical score and shaped into a nine-minute composition. The Irish Chamber Orchestra, based at the university, has recorded the composition and will give a live performance on September 21st.
Meanwhile, a recording is being played at the Irish stand at Expo 2000 in Hanover.
March 1999 was a month of heavy rainfall, Mr Taylor notes, and "musically, it is pretty impressive".
Prof Micheal O Suilleabhain, of the Irish World Music Centre, who launched the project on Thursday, said creativity was being revisited by the use of new technologies in artistic projects.
Listeners, however, may find the music as relaxing as being caught in a heavy shower. Mr Seamus Crimmins, head of Lyric FM, said irate calls were made to the station when the piece was played to stressed commuters after 5 p.m. on Thursday. Further information is available at www.softday.ie