Hour Change

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119811629#Comment_119811629

There's no actual evidence that road traffic collisions would increase due to scrapping putting back the clock. It's a nonsense that we do it and absolutely hate that it will be dark from 5pm and earlier from now on.

Wishbone Ash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119811744#Comment_119811744

Winter time is the normal time. Clocks go forward for the summer and they return to normal for winter. If abolished it would have to remain at winter time.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119811765#Comment_119811765

Nonsense.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119811773#Comment_119811773

No. Winter time is the normal time.

Based off 12 noon I'd imagine. You could redefine it on that basis maybe. But as per current definition, winter time is the unadjusted one

HeidiHeidi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119811780#Comment_119811780

Summer time is also known as Daylight Saving Time.

Winter time is the "normal" time, also known as UTC (Universal Time Constant, formerly Greenwich Mean Time).

So summer time is also known as UTC+1 (for example when calculating tides)

Graces7

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119811581#Comment_119811581

lol.. I was about to post that too.. But hypersomnia has arrived with the shorter daylight so they get fed whenever I manage and always have food out ready. The latest rescue who was systematically starved now yells and shouts when he gets hungry!.. Thankfully out here noone will be lighting fireworks, The way the wind is they may welll not get over anyways.. 2 are out and there are raw chicken joints waiting for them..

My record for sleeping ( SAD plus CFS/ME ) was 19 hrs out of the 24 and looks to be heading for a bad time already. I have one clock on old time and one on new at present..

dontmindme

ahh...now it's making sense why I woke so early this morning

YFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119811687#Comment_119811687

Yes. The bottle of Malbec in Aldi 😂

Akrasia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5gQ_rruDmc

(absolutely not judging anyone, only posting this because its hilarious)

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119811744#Comment_119811744

Well I and many others equally hate that it's been practically dark getting up at 7.30 recently. Not everyone stays in bed till midday :)

As for road safety, of course there is no evidence as the model has not been tried in many decades for very good reason. We do have evidence though that road safety is compromised in existing periods of fog, ice and wintry conditions - so it is entirely logical & predictable that putting people on the road an hour earlier (in terms of poor road conditions) will cause issues.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119811765#Comment_119811765

Indeed, 'summer time' is the aberration, a useful one but still it's where the distortion lies for a few months.

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119813313#Comment_119813313

No it isn't. Sweden and Finland have amongst the lowest road fatalities and accidents in the EU and deal with significantly longer dark hours and icy/wintery conditions than us. The whole nonsense that road accidents would go up is just that. Getting dark at 4pm in December is just silly when the extra hour of daylight would be much more useful in the evening. Not everyone goes to bed at 5 in the afternoon 😉👍

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058269670/hour-change

Just hang in there one day they’ll invite you out to dinner at a swanky restaurant and pay for it as my son did this evening - admittedly it’s about 20+ years off, but you’ll get there ;-)

rogue-entity

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058269670/hour-change

It would be nice to see this absolute anachronism done away with

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119811179#Comment_119811179

For a country that worked so hard for independence, we sure do love copying everything they do, don't we /sarcasm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119811571#Comment_119811571

Irish Standard Time is defined as 1 hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, per the Standard Time Act of 1968.

Logically Ireland should be split down the middle with the portion west of 7.5E on UTC -1, with the eastern portion on UTC.

The French and the Spanish should both be on UTC, but if I recall one was dragged forwards by WW2 and one opted to align with Germany for political reasons.

From a practical standpoint, shifting permanently one hour forwards puts us out of sync for five months of the year with the UK but gives us more 'daylight hours' in the winter at the cost of commuting in the dark.

thefallingman

what about the cows

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119811765#Comment_119811765

Most of Ireland is more than half an hour west of Greenwich, isn't it? So GMT is not our 'natural' time.

Regarding RTCs, the argument I was used to hearing is that darker mornings are better, as that's when people are rested. I.e. you're better off having people driving in the dark in the morning and the light in the evening because they're more likely to suffer from attention issues due to tiredness in the evening. Not sure if research bears that out though.

PokeHerKing

Is the difference between east and west of Ireland really enough to warrant different timezones?

Google is giving me a 10 minute difference between Dublin and Mayo. Far from enough imo.

magicbastarder

I had it in my head that Dublin is 25 mins from Greenwich and the west is 40 mins.

just to confirm - the farthest extent of the dingle peninsula is 42 minutes west. the most easterly point of the island of ireland is just short of 22 minutes west.

PokeHerKing

So a 20 minute difference for the most extreme. Still don't think it merits it.

Especially within the context of our island.

Massive land mass/different countries maybe but not for the island.

Furze99

It's 4 minutes for every degree of longitude, so Ireland definitely doesn't warrant a split time zone, that'd be quite mad.

Rather the point is that the west of Ireland is typically 10 degrees west of Greenwich, so sun rises/ sets 40 minutes after it does at Greenwich in London. The sun in the west of Ireland in 'winter time' is typically not due south till c 1240 and in 'summer time' till c. 1340.

You could argue that Ireland as an island could have it's own time zone based on 8 degrees west, that's roughly Athlone. But that would only be c ½ hour difference from GMT. So we're kind half a dozen of one and six of the other.

Overall it makes sense to make the best of it and for convenience to stick with GMT/ Brit time. And if we have to plump for no change in the hour, to stick with so called 'winter time' as this arrangement distributes daylight best about both sides of noon in our overall situation.

The problem is terminology - the unwashed public associate 'summer time' with lovely long evenings spent at BBQs in the garden etc and think wouldn't it be great to keep 'summer time' all year round. It's a silly idea seized upon by populist politicians every year who want to grab a few headlines, mostly FG I notice. Calling things 'summer time' or 'winter time' has no difference to weather and actual amounts of daylight.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119814544#Comment_119814544

no, but i was making a (facile) point that most of ireland is more than half an hour west of greenwich, so could be argued that the whole island could be in the next time zone over.

TooTired123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119814487#Comment_119814487

You either have no idea about the sheer scale of the daily interaction between Ireland and the UK, and that we geographically share a land mass with part of the UK, or you do, but somehow think that we could be an hour ahead/behind them right now, today, and there would be no problems of any kind caused by this whatsoever.

Which is it?

orourkeda1

The extra hour was tremendous this year. Her and I had a roll around in the hay, so to speak.

PokeHerKing

Really noticed the change on the commute home tonight. No difference to the commute in this morning.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119811571#Comment_119811571

Let's have another hour of daylight in summer when everyone's in bed. Great idea.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119811780#Comment_119811780

Nope. Irish Standard Time is summer time, GMT+1. Standard Time Act 1968, as amended 1971.

magicbastarder

ireland is an outlier in that respect in terms of how we officially define it, but the effect is the same.

magicbastarder

one thing i'm fairly certain i once read, but have forgotten, is why the 'fall back' clock change is less two months before the winter solstice but 'spring forward' is more than three months after - why not two months either side? e.g. why not have spring forward at the end of February instead of March?

The Mighty Quinn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119811339#Comment_119811339

Yes unfortunately, and the amazing thing over the last few days is I long for when I can get up at 5:30 again instead of 430-445!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119811585#Comment_119811585

Interesting. I've heard of them, but does this cause an issue in summer when it can be bright at before 5am anyway? What's the solution to this, black-out blinds and set the gro-clock to 7? 😎

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119826259#Comment_119826259

Assuming you rise at say 8am for arguments sake, you would have c.14 hours daylight in June. Is that not enough for you to do what you need to do? Better than it only getting bright at 10am in mid winter out in Mayo.