RTÉ – the new teachers in our little rural kindergarten

Maybe, it’s better to put the record straight right from the start. I’m not a member of the Far Right . . . I’m not an anti-vaxxer . . . I’m not a denier of climate change . . . I’m even inclined to believe in God at times, but last week when one of the ‘big wigs’ of RTÉ News went on Twitter to deliver a lecture on climate change, I genuinely felt that I had returned to some sort of national kindergarten.

Overall, we’ve had a pretty average Summer, a fair bit cooler than normal for April, May and June as evidenced by the average temperatures from the Met Éireann stations. For example, at the Athenry station, the average temperature for the year so far stands at 9.4° Celsius, 0.5°C below the long-term average of 9.9°C. Then we get a fabulous couple of weeks of sunshine, higher than normal temperatures (albeit a little bit too hot for the likes of me), and the lectures start about climate change.

I’m not even a great fan of the heat. Outdoor farm work in the evenings tends to get a bit too uncomfortable if the thermometer even starts to approach the mid-20s and especially so if there’s humidity in the air and the nights don’t cool. But, in all probability, we have enjoyed the peak of our summer weather. The rest of August is predicted to be pretty much of a mixed bag, and if anything, a bit cooler than normal.

We all know that our world is warming and that a whole series of measures are being put in place with general international co-operation to try and at least slow down that trend, but every time a bit of a wind blows, or we get a fine week, do we have to be hit with the hammer of climate change. Maybe, just give us a little break when we get a fine spell of weather; just tell people to get out into the great outdoors and simply enjoy it, with of course all the usual health caveats as regards UV rays and the pandemic.

I know that I’m not the first one to carry this torch and last week, one of our Independent TDs in the West of Ireland and a turfman of note, Michael Fitzmaurice, also had taken enough of the lectures from RTÉ’s Dublin base.

He didn’t spare the man – MD of RTÉ News and Current Affairs, Jon Williams – who had made the Twitter apology for not linking climate change in news reports to our recent fine spell of weather. Deputy Fitzmaurice described this grovel as ‘sickening propaganda’. There and then, I just felt that Mick Fitzmaurice’s sentiments struck a chord with a lot of rural people across the West of Ireland.

Read the full Country Living column in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now – or you can download our digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie