Meteor magic mesmerises in West Cork

Dunmanway man, James Duggan, was one of the lucky people in West Cork who had a memorable sighting of a meteor earlier this month.

James witnesses the spectacle shortly before midnight on January 4th. ‘I was sitting on the couch watching TV and I saw a fireball going through the sky, magically fast,’ James told The Southern Star. ‘I went to the window and watched as it broke into seven different lights. And then it was out – gone.

Keeping an eye on the horizon are James Duggan of Dunmanway and his six-year-old son Cillian. James saw an impressive meteor combust on the night of January 4th last.

‘It was the brightest thing in the sky,’ said James. ‘It was pure yellow. At the time I caught it, it was just about to explode.

‘I’m not an expert but I think it was either a meteor or the re-entry of something from a man-made object. It was something unbelievably special,’ said James, who reported the sighting he made from his home at Derrylahan to Astronomy Ireland.

‘I’d say it was a meteor because it was travelling really fast. It was over in about three seconds.’

James put his news online and his friend, Alex Nowotynski, said he saw it too as he was driving up the backroad in Drinagh. Friends of Alex, who were near Drinagh Co-op, also witnessed the spectacle.

‘It was cold and there was no wind,’ said James. ‘When they break up they more or less fall vertically, and the less wind there is the more vertical it is. The lights were so bright it might have looked to be a lot closer to me than it actually was.

‘It was dark so I don’t know exactly where it fell,’ said James, who suggested the debris may have fallen within two sq miles of the village of Coppeen, which he could see on the horizon.

His children, Cillian (6) and Katie (2) were told the story the following morning and they went with their dad to search the land for stardust. ‘I know it is a needle in a haystack but I don’t know if I will ever stop looking for it,’ James said.

‘The parts could be the size of an apple by the time they hit the ground, unless it was something substantial, so it could be hard enough to find them. But somebody someday might come across them in the future, maybe when a field is being ploughed.’

Researching his newfound passion for the subject, James can tell that meteors, or the debris, can have seven different colours. ‘This one was pure yellow so it was probably iron because the colours account for what is in the meteor.’

James also knows the science behind what’s happening. ‘Air gets into it because it is coming into our atmosphere at such a velocity. It breaks it up, and if anything makes it to the ground it’s a fraction of the size it was on entry.’

It’s a guess, but he thinks the size of the meteor he saw could have been 3m wide. And when asked if movies like Don’t Look Up instil fear of what’s out there, James replied with a definite, ‘No.’

‘Seeing this was very positive. When I look out now it has changed my horizon because I will always picture it. It was cool.’

James, who is the owner and operator of Funmanway Adventure Land, which for the last 13 years has been paintballing and other fun events and games, knows how rare the sighting was. ‘It’s so hard to describe. My wife, Laura, is laughing at me because I am thinking of getting a good artist to paint what I saw just so I can share it with people.’