Clodagh Finn: Why Storm Agnes leaves behind a silver lining
![Clodagh Finn: Why Storm Agnes leaves behind a silver lining Clodagh Finn: Why Storm Agnes leaves behind a silver lining](/cms_media/module_img/7554/3777124_14_articlesmall_DENIS_20storm_207.jpg)
Huge waves pounding the shore at Garrettstown, Co Cork, during Storm Agnes, this week. Picture Denis Minihane
I like to think of her at home in Skibbereen where, as a child, she and elder sister Ellen Mary were home-schooled. Their mother, Catherine Mary (née Deasy), described as an “intellectual lady with considerable musical talents playing piano and harp” and father John William Clerke, TCD scholar and manager of the Provincial Bank, made excellent teachers.
![Agnes Mary Clerke. Agnes Mary Clerke.](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7554/3777010_16_articleinline_Clerke_Agnes_Mary.jpg)
Almost a century later, historian Dr Allan Chapman summed up her life’s work like this: “No other single figure has a better case when it comes to being considered as the founder of the history of astronomy as a serious, scholarly study. She also practised in that most intellectually dangerous and fluid branch of history: the history of her own time.”
![D-Day heroine Maureen Sweeney pictured in Tí Aire Nursing Home in Belmullet with her award. Picture: Tom Reilly D-Day heroine Maureen Sweeney pictured in Tí Aire Nursing Home in Belmullet with her award. Picture: Tom Reilly](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7554/3777142_11_articleinline_maureensweeneypic_1_.jpg)
When the ‘Name a Storm’ competition comes around again next year, I’ll be making a pitch to include (with her permission) Maureen Sweeney, the Irish woman whose weather forecast saved D-Day.
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