No whining about the weather

New England is digging out after record-setting snowfall and damaging winds from the historic Blizzard of 2026 shut down travel and buried communities across the region, but their misery gets some company from across the Atlantic. Tim Zimmermann offers this from Ireland:

During all the summers my family spent in Glandore, there was one edict above all: No Whining About The Weather! In fact, it is enshrined on a chalkboard near the front door. So even if I wanted to whine about the weather this winter—bemoaning the endless procession of wet, windy, and wet AND windy days—I wouldn’t. Family culture is a powerful force.

Apart from reducing the overall frequency of whining, which is always a worthy goal, I always partially understood the edict as an attempt to rapidly acculturate visitors to the Irish relationship with weather, in which a little rain (or even a lot of rain) should not interfere with plans or activities. So, I have been slightly surprised in recent weeks to experience a building chorus of weather whining from just about every Irish person I know. – Full report