I said, ‘A round of drinks on the house, folks. We may be out here for some time.’

Applause greeted this. I felt suddenly that I was growing into the mine-host role. There was a conviviality in the bar now, the type that is said to come always with threatened disaster.

Great howls of wind echoed down the Doo Lough Valley, and they were answered in volleyed sequence by the howls of the Killary dogs.

Four of the six Belarusians wore love bites on their necks as they sipped at their complimentary bottled Heinekens. They were apparently feasting delightedly on each other in my back rooms.

The elderlies introduced themselves.

We met Alan and Norah Fettle from Limerick, and Jimmy and Janey McAllister from Limavady. They were the least scared among us, the least awed.

‘Yon wind’s changing,’ Jimmy Mac said. ‘Yon wind’s shiftin’ easterly so ’tis.’

‘I wouldn’t like the sounds of that,’ John Murphy said. ‘Not much good will come ever out of a swappin’ wind. You’d hear that said.’

It was said also in Killary that an easterly wind unseated the mind.

I shot a glance outside, and on a low branch of the may tree hanging over the water a black-backed gull had apparently killed its mate and was starting to eat it. This didn’t seem like news that anybody wanted to hear, so I kept it to myself.

Alexei, the conspicuously wall-eyed Belarusian, had gone to survey the scene from an upstairs window and he returned to report that the car park beside the hotel was flooded completely.

‘Insurance will cover any damage,’ Bill Knott soothed.

‘It’s going to be one of those fuckin’ news clips,’ John Murphy said. ‘Some fuckin’ ape sailin’ down the street on a tea tray.’

‘Jesus Christ what’s that gull doing?’ Norah Fettle said.

It was an inopportune moment to draw attention to the gull situation. The black-back had just at that instant managed to prise its partner’s head off, and was flailing it about. Janey McAllister passed out cold on the floor. There was no getting away from the fact that we were being sucked into the deeps of an emergency.

I was getting happy notions. I was thinking, the place gets wiped out, I claim the insurance, and it’s Cambodia here I come.

Norah Fettle and Vivien Harty tended to Janey McAllister. She was frothing a little, and moaning softly. They called for brandy. Bill Knott signalled for a fresh Bushmills, John Murphy for a pint of stout.

We all looked out the windows.

The water had passed the fourth step and was sweeping over the porch. We were on some vague level aware that house lights still burned on the far side of the harbour, along the mountainside of Mweelrea. Then, at once, the lights over there cut out.

‘Good night, Irene,’ Bill Knott said.

The worst of the news was that the emergency appeared to be localised. The fjord of Killary was flooding when no other place was flooding. The rest of the country was going about its humdrum Monday-night business – watching football matches, or Dan Brown adaptations, putting out the bins, or putting up with their marriages – while the people of our vicinity prepared for watery graves.