And yet it is how Ireland often is, not the bright sunshine and blue sky of typical postcard images. The landscape is sympathtic to the soft weather of an Irish day.
There's a poetry to the landscape in such conditions as here in Donegal and although I typically head for woodlands in grey weather, I do still enjoy photographing the open landscape with the distant grey of mountains melding in with the grey of the sky.
In fairness, Dublin's Phoenix Park did see 33C in 2022, the second highest temperature recorded in Ireland after the record 33.3C in Kilkenny set in 1887.
I'm not complaining, the stormy weather was much more interesting for photography than sunny, warm and hazy heatwave conditions would have given; crashing waves showing the power of the Atlantic as it meets the geological landscape of these cliffs.
Indeed these cliffs as you see them rise steeply for 100 to 120m above the deep blue ocean below, the rocks here are amongst Ireland's oldest, dating to the Pre-Cambrian.
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The sun will of course rise in the east again on the following morning but we will see less and less of Earth's lifegiver until December 21st when the day length reaches its shortest.
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Bono and Clannad recorded a video here for their famous track In a Lifetime back in 1986.
The rough sheep grazing land stretching uphill is dotted with rocks.