Blacksod Lighthouse, County Mayo and D-Day June 6th 1944

Out on Ireland’s Atlantic Coast, in one of the most remote places in the country, sits Blacksod Lighthouse.

A new documentary by Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE tells the story of Maureen Sweeney, who on her 21st birthday, was taking weather readings at this remote outpost and relaying those through Ballina and Dublin to the Allies in Doncaster where Group Captain Stagg was interpreting the weather charts and information provided by various stations including those from Blacksod and advising General Eisenhower of the best time to launch the D-Day landings in June 1944.

Maureen, on the 3rd of June 1944, picked up the falling pressure which meant that a storm was on the way. Asked to double check, she did and on the basis of her weather readings the allied invasion was postponed until the 6th of June when the storm had passed through the English Channel.

Here is an image of the fine lighthouse, it probably didn’t look like this on the 3rd of June 1944 but on a bright day it’s an impressively scenic place, somewhere appropriate to contemplate how much the weather could influence the outcome of a war that was happening 500 miles away.