Watery Waterford

The Irish climate is not for amateurs. No matter what time of year it is, no matter what the weathermen predict, even what you expect - you can't expect to know what the heavens will provide.

When you look at the photograph, above, you might think that I stumbled upon a tropical beach, that the sun was beating down and that off to the wings tropical forest festooned with orchids and alive with monkeys and parrots waits. In fact off camera was the seaside town of Tramore in County Waterford.

Traditionally this is where working class Dubliners went on holidays and it is a hive of grisly hotels, loud pubs and run down amusement arcades. Wandering through it twenty minutes before taking this image I was struck by the grey light, the ugly shopfronts and the garish funfair pumping out exhausted music and teenagers lurking outside off-licenses. Walking down to the shore past the public toilets and over anonymous waterpipes you reach the broad expanse of Tramore Beach.

Tramore, in Irish, means the Great Strand and in the cold light of a passing shower its shimmers cold and silver. Vast puddles reflect stormy skies and grey leaden clouds and then, suddenly, in the middle of a rainy day the clouds open and the sun debuts. The light clasps the air in pale blues and light pinks, the sand reflects upwards and puddles turn into fallen sky.

And then just five seconds after the image is taken the sky turns, the clouds close over and the rain begins again.

Irish weather.