Living with Rainfall: Fogs, Mists, Vapours in Irish History, 1800 – present

Delivered by the most outstanding academics in the UK and beyond, the British Academy’s flagship Lecture programme showcases the very best scholarship in the humanities and social sciences.

Along the towns and cities of Ireland’s western seaboard, rain falls on more than 250 days a year. Moist air drifts in from the Atlantic, shifting from fine mist to driving downpours as weather systems make landfall. These conditions have shaped distinctive damp landscapes and deeply influenced everyday life.

This lecture explores how people have learned to live with persistent wetness, adapting their homes, infrastructure, and routines to an ever-present presence of rain. At a time when climate change is destabilising these environments, understanding the long histories behind them becomes increasingly urgent. The lecture examines the political decisions, infrastructural demands, and material forces that continue to shape these weather patterns today; while also reflecting on the importance of recording and preserving the ways communities have lived with weather over time.

Speaker: Dr Erika Hanna

Dr Erika Hanna is Associate Professor in Modern History at the University of Bristol. She is the author of Modern Dublin: Urban Change and the Irish Past (Oxford University Press, 2013) and Snapshot Stories: Visuality, Photography, and the Social History of Ireland, 1922-2000 (Oxford University Press, 2020). She has research interests in urban history, visuality, landscape, and weather and currently holds a British Academy Mid Career Fellowship entitled 'Rainfall and the Irish Urban Experience, 1800-2000'

Chair: Dr Shaun Hides, Coventry University

Free, booking required

This lecture will be available to attend in-person and will include a reception for attendees, details to follow.

If you have any questions about this event, please email [email protected].

Image credit: Dr Erika Hanna