McHugh's Miscellany - The times they are a-changin!

Sunday past was a confusing day in the McHugh household as we had only managed to ‘spring forward’ half the clocks in the house, before the slumbers of sleep set upon us.

That grumpy head business continued the following school Monday morning, due to the disappearance of the mysterious lost hour, far into the yonder Galactic gateway.

Academy Award performances all round and one could have had misgivings about who should really have received the Oscar this year for best performance in feigning inability to get out of bed!

Daylight saving time say some, a real pain say others!

In the past, it was heralded twice a year on the front of the local and indeed national newspapers. Now it barely gets a mention.

In truth, the younger generation with their mobile phones and electronic accoutrements, don't even have to think about it.

Hey presto!, as soon as the bewitching hour arrives, phones automatically transition to the new time, whether forward or back.

My throwback is the old reliable of 'Spring forward, Fall back’.

A Ballintra man having his say over the need for 'Irish time' back in the 1920s 

Like many things about British officialdom, that many have scowled about in this country, it was the Sassenachs who came up with the plan for “Summer Time” back in April of 1916.

As we now know, the living was far from easy then, to partially borrow a phrase from the song, made famous by George Gershwin’s opera, Porgy and Bess.

The fountain of knowledge that is the Democrat explained the backdrop in an edition of 1981.

The pullava that has caused all the time troubles since 1916 

Summer Time in Britain and Ireland was first introduced by an Act in the British parliament in 1909.

Called the Daylight saving bill the originator to “save” daylight was one William Willett, a London builder, who died in 1915.

The bill was dropped following his death but was re-enacted in 1916 and “changing the clock” became compulsory, despite opposition from the farming community.

The dates anointed became May 21 and September 30.

A later 1922 Act changed the dates from 2am on the third Saturday of April until 2am on the morning of the third Saturday in September.

In 1925 it was changed yet again, this time the first week in October replaced the September ‘fall back’.

Ireland followed suit and this continued until 1981 when they advanced by a week to conform with European times, but still an hour behind.

‘Ballyshannon Sparks’ writing in 1941 was one of many down the years, who got stuck into the annual debate as to the merits or otherwise of such a move:

“If there are those who are expressing dissatisfaction with the present daylight saving arrangement they are certainly not the local plotholders, who each evening are putting elbow grease into their job ‘till the cows come home’.”

It happens twice a years and as they say even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day

And one could have forgiven Sparks as during World War Two aka, ‘The Emergency’, Ireland had double Summertime, which left the time here one hour in advance of Britain.

A standardised European time has been mooted for decades and the Democrat was speculating in 1975 how long before this might happen within the EEC. Big fans were the French who reckoned that the energy bills would see the biggest benefit.

Almost half a century later, the ‘standardisation’ plans are still afoot.

Hopefully I can give you the most uptodate situation, when I hopefully get to draw down the State pension and pick up the free bus pass, unless they disappear in the interim, along with daylight saving!

I leave you with one little gem, I came across in a Guardian newspaper article, dated from 2006.

Women of Honour finally 'vindicated' but justice far from over

“We finally are being heard. They are finally acknowledging what has happened to us. The report has finally given us our acknowledgement and we are finally going to see justice."

The writer recalled a tale where in October 1999, the King of Tonga, Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, put the clocks forward one hour, to make sure that his island would beat neighbouring Fiji to the millennium.

Well Holy God, as Miley would have said to Biddy in Glenroe.

Full credit to Bob Dylan for the headline :-)