March is the beginning of the good half, and the change is in the sky rather than in the sea. The winter lows begin to slacken and to track further north, and in the gaps between them high pressure gets a chance to build over the country for the first time since autumn.
That matters more here than anywhere else on the Atlantic. This coast faces west, the prevailing wind is a westerly, and a westerly is onshore on every beach from Donegal to Clare. The wind that cleans a wave here has to come off the land, out of the east, and an easterly only turns up when a high sits over Ireland or just beyond it. March is the first month of the year that produces them with any regularity.
The water has not caught up. It is still at 8°C and will not move until the end of April, so March feels colder than the daffodils suggest.
