Met Éireann said they needed to be sure that none of this year’s storms shared a name with any of the candidates for the forthcoming Presidential election.
In discussions over the list for 2025 and 2026, the Irish meteorological service said they were not yet sure who was running for the Presidency, but wanted to alert colleagues in the U.K. and the Netherlands it was happening.
An email to them said: “We certainly couldn’t have a live storm with the name of a candidate during the election.”
U.K. forecasters were also worried about using the Irish name ‘Fíadh’ for a storm this season because they thought it sounded a little bit too much like ‘fear’.
However, in discussions, Met Éireann reassured them of its far less sinister pronunciation by sending an audio recording of how it actually sounds when spoken.
An email said the Irish meteorological service wanted to keep it in contention for this year’s list.
Met Éireann said it had some “nice stories behind it” and was the only Irish-language name on this year’s list.
Fíadh had been put forward as part of a Met Éireann initiative to get the public to help choose storm names for this year.
An internal list said: “Fíadh is an Irish girl’s name meaning wild or untamed. The name’s connection to nature and the wild symbolises the untamed aspects of the individual, their tenacity, and their willingness to push boundaries.
“This sounds both like my … daughter Fíadh and most storms.”
However, staff in Met Éireann flagged it early as a potential issue for colleagues in the UK and Netherlands saying it might prove tricky.
TV forecaster Gerry Murphy wrote to colleagues saying: “I think the names that are being suggested are good.
“The only one I would be a bit concerned with is Fíadh. It is a lovely name, but it might be one of those Irish names that people in Britain might pronounce incorrectly.”
In the end, Fíadh did not make the twenty-one strong list, and was replaced instead with Fionnuala, which was on an alternate list from Met Éireann.
An email from the U.K. Met Office said: “After considering the recordings, would you mind if we make the swap from Fíadh to Fionnuala for the final list?”
Seven of the twenty-one names were chosen by Ireland following a social media campaign from Met Éireann to submit names for the 2025 and 2026 season.