02/03/2026
If anyone knows Jack Shaughnessy can they ask him to contact us - [email protected] | 094 9256114. ❤️
Around now, back in 2018, we were experiencing the Beast from the East, our most recent, significant 'snow event'.
Local farmer,Jack Shaughnessy, was well prepared with the essentials- bread, milk and the paper.
But Jack had seen much worse, the Big Snow of 1947 and his account in 2018, still holds the record as the most viewed post on Humans of Longford with 207,829 people reached and received 3,700 ' likes'.
I think it's worth repeating his account of the Big Snow 1947 :
.." no one who lived through it, could ever forget it, tge Big Snow of '47..
I remember well,we were at tge fair in Mohill, it was a special fair ,known locally as Monahan Day( from the saint Manachan)..it was25th February, 1947.
Anyway, we bought a good deal of cattle and.of course we had to walk them home..and it started to snow and snow and snow..it just kept on snowing and with it there was a black wind from the East that'd cut you...
Can you just imagine walking a herd of bullocks in the driving snow, up to their knees in snow...ploughing and trudging and the snow falling thick and fast...
It covered ditches and drains and at times it was hard to make out where you were...we walked those cattle from Mohill to Lettergunnel,Esker..
It was cruel cold,I remember well a neighbour had big horned cattle..there was a lot.of them too...they all took shelter in a dry drain..it was covered with briars...
I suppose the poor animals thought they were warm and safe ..but the blizzard covered up the whole lot...not a single beast survived...they all died..terrible,terrible...."
Jack Shaughnessy .
