After a bitterly cold and wet few weeks, summer is thankfully on the horizon and with it those glorious grand stretches in the evening
People enjoying the sun shine at Poolbeg, Dublin(Image: Collins Photo Agency)
Longer summer evenings are on the way as the clocks are set to go forward an hour in a matter of weeks as Daylight Saving Time kicks in.
Brighter evenings are beginning to show and we’re all excited for 8pm sunsets that are just around the corner.
After a miserable winter in which Ireland has been battered by a near endless deluge of rain couple with bitterly cold conditions, the prospect of the return of longer days, lighter evenings and, hopefully, some much-needed good weather is a tantalising one.
Thanfull, we don’t have too much longer to wait as a clock change is on the way for Ireland, with people set to lose an extra hour in bed this month, but in return the nights will remain brighter for longer.
Spring forward concept. Alarm clock, pen and notepad. Daylight saving time.
The clocks will go forward on Sunday, March 29 from 1am, meaning our watches will instead jump ahead to 2am, giving us one less hour time in bed but more time in daylight in the evenings.
For anyone who owns a smartphone, you don’t need to worry because it will automatically update you with the correct time, but for those decorative clocks, you will need to manually update them.
Clocks go back across all EU member states on the last Sunday in October and forward on the last Sunday in March.
In North America, Daylight Savings Times (DST) starts on the second Sunday in March while clocks go back on the first Sunday in November. Meanwhile, in Australia, the clocks will go back on the first Sunday in April.
The change was put into law in order to make the best of natural light as the earth travels around the sun.
A clock change is on the way for Ireland next month, with people set to lose an hour in bed(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
The clocks will then go back one hour on Sunday, October 25, 2026.
One helpful way of remembering which way the clocks will change is – “spring forward, fall back”.
While about 70 countries change their clocks but China, Japan, India and most countries near the equator leave time as it is. While many countries in Asia and South America experimented with DST, they ultimately abandoned it. African countries have mostly never observed DST.
Daylight Savings Time was introduced in Ireland on May 21, 1916. Its introduction came just weeks after the destruction of Dublin in the Easter Rising which unfolded on the streets of the capital just weeks earlier.
Ireland was still under British control at the time and the Daylight Savings Time was introduced across the UK and Ireland at the same time.
Germany, however, jumped the gun and moved the clock forward by an hour on May 1, 1916.
The clocks going back and forward in autumn and spring could soon be consigned to history.(Image: Getty)
The idea for more daylight hours in summer had been knocking around for some time prior to its introduction.
The Waste of Daylight – a pamphlet by William Willett published in 1907 – was instrumental in setting the clocks back. Willett was an English building contractor and as Ben Shorten writes, Willett “proposed reducing the length of four consecutive Sundays in April by 20 minutes, thereby moving the clocks forwards by 80 minutes for the summer months.”
A version of Willett’s proposal was eventually implemented with clocks going forward on May 21, 1916.
Interestingly, especially for a builder, Willett’s motivation for altering the clocks, was to give workers more time to enjoy the daylight.
Moving the clocks backwards and forwards is not that popular and politicians have, for some time, wondered if DST should be abandoned. As recently as 2018, Jean-Claude Juncker, a former president of the EU, told reporters that “millions believe that summertime should be all time.”
Germans, in particular, are against the clocks changing. In 2018, an EU survey found that 84 per cent of respondents were against DST, with the largest share of participants coming from Germany.
In 2019, the EU voted on calling an end to Daylight Saving Time permanently after 2021 based on findings in an EU-wide survey.
The clock change was scheduled to take place in Spring 2021, but the proposal was delayed due to the worldwide outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and has yet to be revisited.
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