Dairy and beef farmer John Fitzgerald thought his cows would be safest inside his shed in Portlaw, Co Waterford, for the duration of storm Ophelia.

That was until the roof started to “flap up and down” in the wind blowing directly from the nearby coast on Monday morning. “It was flying debris across the yard so I thought it best at that stage to get out of there,” John said. “It was hard to keep on your feet here.”

In the end, only some sheets and part of the top canopy blew off into the slurry tank, but more were dislodged or punctured by nail holes and debris and will have to be replaced. “I’ve been in touch with FBD, telling me to keep all the debris and get estimates. They may send an assessor. They were efficient,” John said.

Another shed most directly exposed to the wind remained intact: “I had the tractor’s loader on the roof – it did the job.”

An old slate roof was partly blown off his neighbour’s farm, where a pine tree fell on another building but didn’t cause damage. Dozens of trees are down in the area with a nearby hedge of mature trees lying flat in one block, their roots forming a man-high wall along a local road.

Most roads were cleared by Tuesday evening but some remained fully obstructed.

Down the road in Kilmacthomas, part of the roof on dairy farmer John Kiersey’s shed is gone too. Storm Darwin had blown off the other end three years ago.

The children’s playhouse lies on its roof in the field next to the house. “At 1pm it got much more vigorous and ferocious,” John said.

“It was so dangerous. It was too frightening an experience to stay around the yard.”

Listen to John and other affected farmers in our podcast below:

That was the time when the shed damage happened and several in a row of 20ft leyland trees toppled.