Wicklow author Sarah Webb launches new children’s book

Published by The O’Brien Press, ‘The Weather Girls’ is inspired by the story of Maureen Sweeney who, on the eve of her 21st birthday, provided hourly weather reports on a storm front from Blacksod Lighthouse and weather station in County Mayo to the war office in England, which proved crucial to the success of D-Day, the largest seaborne invasion in history.

A tale of bravery, adventure and friendship for readers aged nine and older, the book was close to completion when Maureen died last December, aged 100.

While researching the book, author Sarah, who is well-known at the popular Greystones store where she works as an events manager, was helped by Maureen’s grandson Fergus, who grew up in the lighthouse and is now head of visitor experience there, to retell his grandmother’s story through the book’s young heroine, 12-year-old Grace Devine.

Seeing The Emergency through Grace’s young eyes, Webb explores how World War II impacted the small rural community at Blacksod through the rationing of food and fuel, and confronts the question of Ireland’s neutrality head-on when Grace and her friend Sibby risk their lives to save a young German airman who crash lands on the Mayo coast.

Sarah said she hopes her book will inspire young readers as well as inform them of Ireland’s role in the Second World War.

“Maureen’s story might have been written by a Hollywood movie-maker – a young woman in the 1940s who left her home in Kerry to work at a remote weather station in this small community, and ended up changing the course of world history through something as everyday as a weather report. What a fantastic story to tell young readers, to inspire them that small actions can not just change the world, but save it.

“I think it’s important that children learn about Ireland’s experience of The Emergency and consider the complicated feelings many must have had about our neutrality while bombs were dropped on Belfast just up the road. Today, many parents and teachers have to consider how to talk to children about the world’s modern conflicts, but history gives us the perfect way into those conversations. We all learn from stories, and Maureen’s is a story which every child should know.”