2009 Great Britain and Ireland floods
natural disaster in the UK and Ireland
The 2009 Great Britain and Ireland floods were a weather event that affected parts of Great Britain and Ireland throughout November and into December 2009. November was the wettest month across the United Kingdom since records began in 1914 and had well above average temperatures. The worst affected area in Great Britain was the English county of Cumbria. The Irish counties of Clare, Cork, Galway and Westmeath were among the worst affected areas of Ireland.
European windstorms bringing heavy rain and gale-force winds caused damage and flooding to the south of Great Britain on 13–14 November. Unsettled weather continued across the south and later to the north. On 19–20 November, many towns and villages in Cumbria and Dumfries and Galloway were affected. A number of bridges collapsed, one of which led to the death of a police officer, who was standing on the bridge when it collapsed. Another death occurred on 21 November as a canoeist was trapped against a tree near Poundsgate, on Dartmoor in Devon. In Powys, there were two deaths, at Newtown and Talybont-on-Usk.
“2009 Great Britain and Ireland floods” enters the record as natural disaster in the UK and Ireland. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Great, Britain and Ireland can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“2009 Great Britain and Ireland floods” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Great, Britain and Ireland provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q514282. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2009 and 1914.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “2009 Great Britain and Ireland floods”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 2009 Great Britain and Ireland floods primary sources, 2009 Great Britain and Ireland floods archive and Great research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “2009 Great Britain and Ireland floods”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “2009 Great Britain and Ireland floods” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.