Good riddance to a month of darkness and little cheer

January weather images more often than not depict the harshness of mid-Winter in its many guises.

placeholder image — January weather images more often than not depict the harshness of mid-Winter in its many guises.

Country Living with Francis Farragher

As months of the year go, January I find to be one of the most unlovable of all, a bit like Paddy Kavanagh’s dandelions in the field of potatoes as the sprayer pondered his next move. The only little saving grace it has, is that for a short while at least, time seems to go just a bit slower during this dreariest of months, but having said that, as our paper hits the shops today, 25 days of January have elapsed.

Meteorologists and Met Éireann always categorise January as our mid-Winter month based on temperature statistics and it rarely passes without leaving us with some stinging reminder that we’re still a long way off from seeing a real stretch in the evenings and better days to come.

It is a month of morning darkness, with January a veritable scrooge in terms of releasing any extra light before 9am, although there is the ‘cock-step’ in the evening brightness with a solid half-hour plus gain in the sunset time as compared to a month ago.

The ‘cock-step’ is a charming piece of old country lore, and is based on a little idiosyncrasy of the male of the hen species, as they preen themselves in front of their female admirers, more often than not in the past, on the dung stead of the farmyard.

The rooster, cock or cockerel had the habit of lifting one leg at a time without any other body movement and then leaving it back down in almost the same place, but not quite.

On close inspection, there was always just the slightest little gain in terms of the imprint size on the dung heap . . . a little increase in size, but not very much, hence the term ‘cock-step’ to pithily summarise the tiny light gain we enjoy through January.

If we do get the frosts and snows through the month of January, there is often little respite in terms of thawing power with still only a short window of potential sunlight.

Sunrise today (January 25) in Galway, still hasn’t broached 8.30, with the sun going down at 5.06pm, but the key element in terms of ‘thawing power’ during the first month of the year is the height of the sun in the sky.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.