"HAVING reached the end of my poor sinner's life, my hair now white, I grow old as the world dies, waiting to be lost in the bottomless pit of silent and anonymous divinity."
Thus begins the bizarre tale of the ageing Benedictine, Adso of Melk, as related in Umberto Eco's novel, The Name of the Rose. Adso commits his narrative to parchment in the latter half of the 14th century, and tells of happenings in an Italian Benedictine Abbey when he was a novice back in 1327.
The world, he finds, has changed for the worse in the intervening years. "In the past men were handsome and great; now they are children and dwarfs, but this is merely one of the many facts that demonstrate the disaster of an ageing world. The young no longer want to study anything, learning is in decline, blind men lead others equally blind and cause them to plunge into the abyss."
These developments were mirrored here in Ireland. The early part of the 14th century had been a time of some prosperity, with the Norman settlers Hibernicis ipsis Hibernior, much of the country enjoying, stable and efficient government, and the indigenous Irish traditions being enriched by cultural links with mainland Europe.
But a rude awakening came in the winter of 1348-9. The infamous "Black Death" made its appearance, wiping out half the population in parts of continental Europe and ravaging much of the eastern half of Ireland equally effectively.
There also began around this time a period of great climatic volatility and the scene changed from the benign conditions of the late Middle Ages to the cold hostile environment of the Little Ice Age.
The late 1300s were remarkable for their abundant rainfall and for a succession of fierce storms which caused frequent and widespread devastation throughout the countryside. One of the worst is remembered as St Maury's Wind.
St Maury - or more conventionally St Maurus - was also a follower of St Benedict and it was on January 15th, his feast day, in 1362, that the storm associated with his name occurred. It caused great damage countrywide, particularly in Dublin, and has been immortalised in an epic poem by one John Harding:
"In that great year - `twas on St Maury's Day -
A great wind and an earthquake marvellous
Did greatly gan the people all affraye;
So dreadful was it then, and perilous,
And `specially the wind it was so boisterous,
That stone walls, steeples, houses, barns and trees
Were all blown down in diverse far countrees."