Met Éireann said they needed to be sure that none of this year’s storms shared a name with any of the candidates for the forthcoming presidential election.
In discussions over the list for 2025 and 2026, the Irish meteorological service said they were not yet sure who was running for the presidency, but wanted to alert colleagues in the U.K. and the Netherlands it was happening.
An email to them said: “We certainly couldn’t have a live storm with the name of a candidate during the election.”
UK forecasters were also worried about using the Irish name ‘Fíadh’ for a storm this season because they thought it sounded a little bit too much like ‘fear’.
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However, in discussions, Met Éireann reassured them of its far less sinister pronunciation by sending an audio recording of how it actually sounds when spoken.
An email said the Irish meteorological service wanted to keep it in contention for this year’s list.
Met Éireann said it had some “nice stories behind it” and was the only Irish-language name on this year’s list.
Fíadh had been put forward as part of a Met Éireann initiative to get the public to help choose storm names for this year.
An internal list said: “Fíadh is an Irish girl’s name meaning wild or untamed. The name’s connection to nature and the wild symbolises the untamed aspects of the individual, their tenacity, and their willingness to push boundaries.”
[ Storm Amy could damage power lines and topple trees in some western countiesOpens in new window ]
However, staff in Met Éireann flagged it early as a potential issue for colleagues in the UK and Netherlands saying it might prove tricky.
TV forecaster Gerry Murphy wrote to colleagues saying: “I think the names that are being suggested are good. “The only one I would be a bit concerned with is Fíadh. It is a lovely name, but it might be one of those Irish names that people in Britain might pronounce incorrectly.”
In the end, Fíadh did not make the twenty-one-strong list, and was replaced instead with Fionnuala, which was on an alternate list from Met Éireann.
Seven of the twenty-one names were chosen by Ireland following a social media campaign from Met Éireann to submit names for the 2025 and 2026 season.
The first of them – Storm Amy – is already on its way with weather warnings issued of high winds and heavy rain.
Other records from Met Éireann detail the inspiration behind some of the names that were put forward from the Irish side. The name Gerard, which was selected, was put forward by friends and family of a man battling cancer because of his “fascination for extreme weather.”
Bram was also chosen in honour of Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, “whose world is of the night with the howl of the wolves mirroring the sounds of a storm.”
