26 March 2023 - Summer Time begins; Turn the clocks

Daylight Saving Time will start on Sunday 30 March 2023 in Ireland and Europe. The time is set forward by 1 hour on Sunday morning. That means 1 am will be changed to 2 am. It is the shortest night of the year. This change is also known as winter time.

26 Mar 2023 - Daylight Saving Time Starts

When local standard time is about to reach
Sunday, 26 March 2023, 01:00:00 clocks are turned forward 1 hour to
Sunday, 26 March 2023, 02:00:00 local daylight time instead.

Sunrise and sunset will be about 1 hour later on 26 Mar 2023 than the day before.

Most smartphones, tablets and computers will update automatically. However, with the country under lockdown, people can't take much advantage of the extra time.

Why change?

As the Earth orbits the Sun and changes its exposure, the clocks change to make the most of natural light.

In winter, when it's naturally darker, the time goes back an hour, which means an extra hour curled up in bed. However, in summer, the 'great stretch of evenings' is enjoyed, as clocks going forward an hour make longer evenings.

The impact of the change varies by location, with countries that experience more hours of darkness from the equator benefiting more from the system.

Will it end soon?

Europeans see the time change as completely meaningless. Therefore, a referendum was held and the will of the people was already known. In February 2019, the European Parliament gave permission to cancel this time change. Hungary is among the 28-member EU bloc, and the EU Parliament debated a motion to allow for the unification of winter and summer time, and finally decided to stop it with a majority of 410 votes to 192. The EU Commission has announced that it will end the time change process at the end of 2021. The vote will not be the final word on the matter, but will be the basis for negotiations with EU countries to produce a final law.

The final clock change was scheduled to take place in spring 2021; However, in 2019, the European Parliament voted to permanently remove Daylight Saving Time (DST), initially planning to stop seasonal changes after spring 2021. This plan has been put on hold due to the covid pandemic.

The decision was based on evidence that found DST facilitated long evenings that were not good for physical and mental health.

"Scientific evidence suggests that changing the clocks exacerbates adverse health effects, including heart disease and stroke," said Adam Spira, a sleep expert professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Evidence suggests that this change is associated with a higher risk of psychological disturbances and higher production of inflammatory markers in response to stress.

Do the clocks change elsewhere?

Under EU law, clocks in all member states go back one hour on the last Sunday in October and go forward on the last Sunday in March.

Now there will be a difference of 5.30 hours with Indian time. Countries like China, Japan and India do not follow DST.

In the United States and Canada, DST starts at 2 a.m. on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November, while in Australia, the clocks go back on the first Sunday in April and the first Sunday in October.