Country diary: Solar eclipse night was a social phenomenon – who cares if it was cloudy? | Mary Montague

Lisnabreeny, Co Down: There was little fanfare beforehand, but when the moment arrived, so did a group of strangers with a sense of occasion “Eclipses be – predicted – / And Science bows them in –” wrote the poet Emily Dickinson. As last Wednesday’s solar eclipse was bowed in across my news apps, those lines resonated with me. Dickinson’s masterly use of dashes to suspend the word “predicted” mirrored my experience of the Met Office’s forecast, which kept me teetering between hope and dismay...

By Mary Montague