The change is coming earlier than last year

St. Patrick’s Bridge across the River Lee in Cork city on a warm, sunny day(Image: getty)

While evenings have been getting brighter in recent weeks, many households across Ireland will be eagerly waiting for the clocks to go forward again – and thankfully, it’s happening even earlier than last year.

In the next few weeks, we’ll see a return to 8 pm sunsets as the clocks ‘spring forward’ again, and the shift towards meteorological spring will hopefully bring some much-needed sunshine. This year, clocks go forward on Sunday, March 29, with sunset that day at 8:03 pm. The upcoming changeover comes one day earlier than last year, when the clocks went back on March 30.

Looking ahead to next month, things are only set to improve, with the Rebel County seeing sunshine until almost 9 pm by the end of April

For anyone with a smartphone or smartwatch, your device will automatically jump from 1 am to 2 am on March 29, but decorative or manual clocks will need to be adjusted manually. While the change means losing an hour of sleep, it also means longer evenings to enjoy the natural daylight.

Ireland isn’t alone in this seasonal shift. All EU member states move their clocks forward for Daylight Saving Time, a practice designed to make the most of natural daylight as the Earth orbits the sun.

The European Union voted in 2019 to potentially end Daylight Saving Time altogether after 2021, following a survey showing most people would prefer not to switch clocks twice a year. However, the decision was delayed due to the Covid pandemic.

EU institutions have not made progress on implementing the decision, and the European Commission has said that it does not plan to submit a new proposal on the matter to the Parliament, meaning that no changes are expected to summer and winter time in the coming years.

Later this year, the clocks will go back one hour on Sunday, October 26, giving Ireland an extra hour of sleep while marking the return of shorter autumn and winter evenings.

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