The heaviest snowfall that has ever been seen in Wicklow was in the year of 1896. The traffic was stopped for weeks There was a great number of animals smothered and buried in huge drifts of snow, even the villages around were not able to get food for some weeks. Some of the farmers in the mountain districts, had great difficulty in saving their stocks by digging them out and bringing them to shelter near by, built for the purpose of feeding them during the winter months, also it was necessary for them to make a road or track through the snow to the nearest Church to hear Mass, as the snow covered ditches and hedges for miles around which made it very difficult to travel. The snow was so high in Wicklow and the surrounding villages, it was on a level with the windows.Michael Killegar