Then & Now: ‘So what time is it again’?

SPRING forward and fall backwards is the easy way to remember how to change our clocks and timepieces to comply with daylight saving time. Each year on the last Sunday in March, and the last Sunday in October this ritual takes place.

This may change in the coming years due to opposition but for now our clocks will change back on Sunday October 29. But why change at all and whose bright idea was it in the first place? William Willett who lived in Kent England over one hundred years ago was the man who campaigned for the change.

He considered it a great waste of useful daylight time in the morning during the summer months. He was an early riser and he noticed that the majority of people were still asleep even though the sun was up for hours. This observation led him to run with the idea to save daylight time. He became a tireless campaigner, and his idea was eventually adopted by the British Government.

He compiled data and published a pamphlet in 1907 outlining the savings on electric light, gas, oil, and candles, for rich and poor alike. He claimed that 210 additional hours of daylight could be gained over the six months in every year. The amount saved a year would be at least £2,500,000 which would benefit the people of Britain and Ireland. He also made the case that changing the time would discourage drinking and unruly behaviour on the grounds that later evenings would leave less time for carousing.

He campaigned to have his idea accepted until his death from influenza aged 58 years in March 1915. The British Government still refused even though Winston Churchill was a strong supporter, but the farming community was not in favour. Germany introduced his system a year after his death, and Britain followed and the first day of British Summer Time was May 21, 1916. The commencement of the First World War and the promise of money saving on fuel brought the debate to a head and the scheme was considered worth a try.

It was used in other countries including Ireland during World War One, but most European countries abandoned daylight saving time after 1919. Following the Easter Rising, the time difference between Ireland and Britain was regarded as a bit of a nuisance for telegraphic communication and the Time (Ireland) Act 1916 provided that Irish time would be the same as British time from Sunday October 1, 1916.Time as they say doesn’t stand still and Summertime was further regulated by acts in 1923, 1924, and 1925.

In some country areas the time change was not observed, and it caused a lot of problems for people who could be one hour early or one hour late for events such as mass, meetings, or dances. From 1968 Central European Time was observed but this was changed in 1971 to harmonise with the six EEC countries. In 2000 an EU directive was issued on the subject and most countries in Europe now follow the same synchronised daylight-saving time. This means that the people of Ireland move its clocks forward an hour in March and back an hour in October.

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Samhain
HALLOWEEN was originally a pagan festival called Samhain, meaning end of summer. The Celts believed that on the eve of Halloween dead spirits would visit the mortal world, so they lit bonfires to keep evil spirits away and dressed in disguises. Although our Halloween is less about dead spirits and more about having fun and dressing up, there are some traditional aspects of an Irish Halloween that we have kept going.

Some believe that people extinguished their fires in the hearth at home before they left to attend the local bonfire and would reignite them using an ember from the bonfire, for good luck. The day after the bonfire the ashes were spread across the fields to further ward off bad luck for the farmers for the coming year. It was also traditionally believed that the bonfire encouraged dreams especially of your future husband or wife. It was said that if you drop a cutting of your hair into the embers of the fire the identity of your husband or wife would be revealed.

The community would gather around the bonfire, and many would be dressed up in elaborate animal skins and heads. The idea was that the evil spirits would be scared off by the fires. Then if the spirits happened to be wandering the earth and bumped into one of the Celts, they might think they were spirits themselves, because of their disguises, and let them go free. This is where our tradition of dressing up comes from.

The traditional dinner on Halloween night was a simple dish made with boiled potatoes, curly kale (a type of cabbage) and raw onions, called colcannon. Traditionally coins were wrapped in pieces of clean paper and slipped into children’s colcannon for them to find and keep. Sometimes people also hid a ring in the colcannon, and whoever found the ring was to be married within the year.

The traditional Irish Halloween cake was essentially sweet bread with fruit through it as well as some other treats. Shop-bought Barm bracks still contain a ring but if you make it at home and add your own treats it’s even more fun. Each member of the family got a slice and each prize had a different meaning; the rag meant your financial future is doubtful, and the coin was for a prosperous year. The ring meant impending romance or continued happiness, while you’ll never marry if you got the thimble.

There are many games that are played on Halloween night and snap apple or bobbing for apples is one of them. An apple is suspended from a string and the children are blindfolded and their arms tied behind their backs. The first child to get a decent bit of the apple gets a prize. Bobbing for apples is when some apples are dropped into a basin of water and the children have to go in headfirst and try to get a bite. The apples are associated with love and fertility. It is said that whoever gets the first bite will be first to marry. It was also thought that if the girls put the apple they bit, while bobbing, under their pillow that night, they would dream of their future lover.

Blind folded local girls would go out into the field and pull up the first cabbage they stumbled upon. If the cabbage had a lot of clay attached to the roots their future lover would have money. If the girl ate the cabbage the nature of their future husband would be revealed, bitter or sweet. Fairies and goblins were supposed to collect souls as they travelled the earth on Halloween night. The story goes that if you threw dust from under your feet at the fairy, they would release any souls they kept captive.

There are many more ancient customs to write about but for now happy Halloween.