Buenas dias from Donegal

IN 2017 we bade farewell to Sean McEniff.

The 81-year-old Donegal man was a representative of North West Tourism as well as a successful hotelier and businessman.

In his capacity as local tourism chief, Mr McEniff once threatened to sue Met Éireann, the Irish weather forecasting body. Mr McEniff was miffed that forecasts for the north west of the country were regularly inaccurate, according to him, giving the wrong impression of the area and thus discouraging visitors.

While accepting that Donegal perhaps might not enjoy Mediterranean weather, there are times when it is positively pleasant. Occasionally, this corner of the country can bask in the sunshine while Dublin and the east coast suffer several fine soft days bucketing down. Particularly one bank holiday weekend when the north-west corner was the only area of Ireland to bask in spring sunshine. The rest of the country was blanketed in traditional bank holiday weather.

Pat Kenny, then working for RTÉ, was probing the subject with Mr McEniff on his morning radio show. Unfortunately the telephone line kept breaking up.

"I think we'll phone you back on a land line. The mobile reception is terrible," said Pat (doubtless thinking, it's probably the weather up there.)

"I'm on a land line," answered Sean.

"My goodness, it really is bad," said Pat.

"Aye well, I'm in Gran Canaria, you see," replied Sean.

There was a long silence as Pat Kenny digested this information. You could almost imagine what was going through the RTÉ Inquisitor General’s mind: had a particularly bad weather forecast induced Sean to promptly decamp to the Canary Islands? Had the weather become so severe in Donegal that the entire North West Tourism authority had relocated to the Canaries? Or had Sean merely retired to Las Canarias to work on a book entitled 100 Great Donegal Beach Volley Players or the like?

Unfortunately Pat was unable to reconnect with the Spanish islands, so the situation remained clouded.

However RTÉ presenter was able to talk to Dave Rogers from Met Éireann. Despite Sean McEniff's claims, that he "was not bullshitting" about his threat of litigation, Dave was unconcerned about the threat of litigation. He felt the whole thing was a storm in a teacup. Except for the north west of the country which would experience a light breeze in a tea cup, followed by more prolonged spells of rain.

Sean McEniff died this year in April — after having fallen into a coma while on holiday in Puerto Rico. In the Canary Islands. But you probably already guessed that.