Ah, the grand stretch in the evenings. A thing that can make an Irish person weep with joy.

It’s basically our version of the Northern Lights, except instead of staring at the sky we’re just staring out the kitchen window going: ‘Look at that, it’s significantly brighter than it used to be a week ago.’

The tradition of putting the clocks forward, which we all dutifully carried out again last weekend, is a dangerous load of nonsense. And I’m not being dramatic. Well, alright I am, but the science backs me up. A University of Colorado study analysed over 730,000 traffic accidents and found that fatal car crashes jump by 6% in the week after we spring forward. That’s not a rounding error either, that’s people dying because we collectively decided to mess with time like we’re in a Christopher Nolan film.

Research from the University of Michigan found a 25% spike in heart attacks on the Monday after the clocks change. Your heart is literally more likely to pack it in because you lost an hour’s sleep. And if you do make it to work alive, good luck staying in one piece, because workplace injuries jump by nearly 6% too, with workers getting 40 minutes less sleep and racking up 68% more lost workdays. A team of German researchers surveyed 55,000 people and discovered that our internal body clocks simply don’t adjust to the new time, and it can take weeks to recalibrate. Your body basically knows it’s been conned. And God forbid something get in the way of German efficiency.

So who do we have to thank? A fella called William Willett, a London builder who published a pamphlet in 1907 called The Waste of Daylight and spent years badgering Parliament about it. To use modern parlance, he was an awful dickhead.

He died before it was ever implemented but the damage was done, and the Germans, looking to save on coal during World War I, were the first to give it a go.

I should say at this point that Willett is the great-great-grandfather of Coldplay’s Chris Martin, a man who knows a thing or two about sending people to sleep.

The European Parliament voted to scrap the whole thing back in 2019, but like many good ideas in Brussels, it passed away quietly in a filing cabinet. Kerry MEP Seán Kelly has been banging the drum for years but it’s all tangled up in the Northern Ireland border question, where we could have the awkward reality of a time difference on the island. Which would be good craic for a few weeks and then get boring very quickly.

With the European presidency for Ireland coming up, Micheál Martin is a man who understands legacy, and most likely has ‘Did you know I introduced the smoking ban?’ tattooed on his body somewhere. Micheál, this may be your chance to leave an even bigger legacy and change time itself. If our version of Brexit is leaving the Daylight Savings Mafia, then I say bring it on!

Second half shenanigans

You’d think Seán Kelly would be keen to hold onto those long summer evenings so the Kingdom footballers can squeeze in a few more training sessions.

They could do with them after the league final last weekend, when Donegal took them apart at Croke Park. Jim McGuinness’s men had the frightening intensity of a stag party with a Buckfast sponsorship deal and they have almost certainly peaked too soon in the season.

Cork, meanwhile, were busy doing what Cork do best in the Division 2 final against Meath: showing some very promising periods of play and then doing the footballing equivalent of disappearing for a few pints halfway through the second half.

Myself and Fachtna braved the March winds and there were moments when you could be hopeful for the year ahead. Sherlock was outstanding, we put together some brilliant movements, but we somehow managed to go sixteen minutes without scoring while Meath ran riot. You can’t be doing that, lads.

Myself and Fachtna did a disappearing act ourselves after the first match. We couldn’t face the potential horror of watching Kerry winning a final, so we retreated instead to the snug in Gaffney’s of Fairview where we watched Donegal hammer them over creamy pints. Ladies and gentlemen, it was a good decision.

Netflix and chiller

Speaking of horror, herself and myself have been watching Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen on Netflix and we’ve been absolutely terrified. It’s a new series created by Haley Z Boston about a couple heading to a remote family cabin for their wedding, and from the moment they arrive you just know things are going sideways. Camila Morrone is brilliant as the bride who can feel the dread closing in around her. It’s not your usual jump-scare stuff, more of a slow, creeping unease - a bit like the second half of the Cork match. We burned through most of the series in a week.

The perfect excuse to avoid the nice bright evenings, if you ask me.