“Ninety-nine words for rain in Irish?” Manchán Magan wrote in The Irish Times a few weeks before his tragic death, last October. So relentlessly miserable has been the weather that even the most pinch-mouthed Ulsterman – the sort that bellows at the summer sun if it dares to show itself for more than an hour – finds himself yearning for a moment without precipitation. I have had to buy waterproof trousers for the bike – plastic trousers, like something an infant might wear over his nappy. In The Beatles’ magnificent Rain – arguably their best B-side – it acts as a damp gesture towards the state of psychedelia. Sitting in my plastic trousers, chugging chestily on Lemsip, I don’t feel in the mood for Singin’ in the Rain.

Source: The Irish Times February 15, 2026 10:45 UTC