While we were sleeping…

So the Professor dropped by last night.  He was wearing a luminous pink Hi-Vis jacket. “It’s dark by six”, he says, “now that they’ve put back the clocks.

And to think that the European Parliament voted to end Daylight Saving in 2019`- but luckily for us, they put it on hold because of the pandemic.  Because, d’you see: Daylight Saving is a good thing for Ireland”.

Even though I didn’t ask, he went on to inform me that the idea was first proposed in England in 1907 by William Willett (who happens to be the great-great-grandfather of Coldplay singer Chris Martin). He believed that valuable daylight was being wasted on summer mornings because people were still asleep in their beds.

Éirí na Gréine, Sunrise in An Spidéal    photo: Fearghas Mac Lochlainn

“Indeed”, says I, “and it’s also great for artists to be able to work later on summer evenings without having to switch on the studio lights…”

He peered at me over his horn-rimmed glasses, perhaps momentarily impressed that I understood the complexities of latitudes, planetary revolutions, time, space and such (I don’t really, but I know that it’s bright about 15 minutes longer in An Spidéal than here in Dublin and that, if we were to stay in summertime during the winter, it would be dark there in the morning until almost 10am – and that certainly wouldn’t be good…

“It’s because we’re situated about 50 degrees north of the Equator”, he continued, “and only 15 degrees south of the Arctic circle.  At this latitude, the difference in length between a winter’s day and a summer’s day is huge. A day in June is about 17 hours long while a day in December is less than 8 hours.  It’s the location, d’you see, location, location, location”.

“If you want longer days in winter”, says I, “you should move further South”.

And anyway, the thing is: wintertime is the real time; they move the clocks forward for the summer.  And isn’t it wonderful to see ‘the grand stretch’ in the evenings when they do that.  Worth waiting for, in my opinion.

“Agreed”, says the Professor, “but do you know what would be even better?  Two hours forward in the summer!  Yes, one hour in say, April, a second hour in June, then back one hour in August and back a second hour in October.  Or maybe we should do it in half hours, let’s see now…”

Hmmm, perhaps time to mention the images on this post. The sunrise photo was taken by my brother Fearghas in An Spidéal (very early in the morning). The painting at the top was from my solo exhibition Is glas iad na Cnoic at the Olivier Cornet Gallery in 2021. The second painting was from the exhibition Dídean/ Home in Cultúrlann in Belfast in 2013.  Yes, even back then, I loved to view the sky at night… Don’t you?

https://www.culturlann.ie/en

short film about the exhibition in Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich

https://www.oliviercornetgallery.com/

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