The Irish protocol.

Paris is further east that London, downcow. Aligning with Paris would put us further from solar time than we now are, not nearer.

Actually, right now, Dublin is closer to solar time (we're 9 minutes ahead of solar time) than either London (16 minutes behind) or Paris) 34 minutes ahead.

But we all have to yield to Belfast (7 minutes ahead). And Belfast must bow to Douglas (2 minutes ahead). And Douglas has to give place to Cumbernauld, where clock time is exactly the same as solar time.

In Cumbernauld? In Cumbernauld it's always about 1961.

In Ireland, famously, we did get colonisers and planters to assimilate. The first wave became "more Irish than the Irish themselves". The English authorities were quite unhappy about it, as I recall.

Plus, it's a mistake to conflate the unionist/British community in NI with the descendants of planters and colonisers; the two groups overlap only to a small extent. The areas where unionism/British identity is strongest, Antrim and Down, were never planted, while some counties that were planted, like Cavan and Monaghan, have a strong nationalist majority.

The truth is that for much of history travel, and therefore social and economic connections, between the North East of Ireland and Scotland was much easier than travel between the North East and most of the rest of the country. This is because travel by water in boats was quicker and easier than overland travel. This last point is true for the whole of Ireland, but it played out differently in the North East because of the adjacency of Scotland. The British aspect of Northern Ireland's culture and society is the natural result of proximity to Scotland and regular population interchange and mixing with Scotlan much more than the forced outcome of colonisation and settlement by England.

Downcow is nearly correct - well, nearly technically correct.

The westernmost point of France and the easternmost point of Ireland are separated by just 47' of longitude. Which is hardly anything, really.

As it happens, though, the easternmost point of Ireland lies in County Down — it's Burr Point, on the Ards Pensinsula. So if this is an argument for being in the same timezone as Paris, it's an argument that applies to Northern Ireland with more force than it does to the Republic.

We are on Western European time, as you'll discover if you check the Wikipedia article on the Western European Time Zone. So is the UK.

It's France and Spain that are the anomalies here - they are both on Central European Time, despite this putting them further from solar time than WET would. They used to be on WET but they switched - France, because of the vast amount of physical, social and economic connections across its eastern border and Spain, because of France.

There's a trade-off between being on clock time which is close to solar time, and being on clock time which is convenient for your social and economic connections. France prefers to be on CET rather than WET because the inconvenience of Paris being 34 minutes ahead of solar time is not much greater than the inconvenience of Paris being 26 minutes behind it, as they would be if they were on WET, and it's more than offset by the convenience of being on CET for transport, social, commercial etc links with other countries in the CET time zone.

The further from the equator you are, the greater the inconvenience of being out of synch with solar time. Great Britain lies pretty much within the same longitudes as France and does far more business with CET countries than with the other WET countries (which are, basically, Ireland and Portugal), but hasn't switched to CET. Ireland's centre of population is further north than the UK's so it's not a given that, even if the UK weren't there, Ireland would opt for CET.

This is one you should really go back to the drawing board on, Downcow.

Due to shared history, Ireland and Britain have much in common, no one has denied that....but you're really grasping at straws with the reasoning behind your example.

Perhaps you should follow the advice you shared earlier on the thread and just leave it at, 'I was wrong'....

How can you agree on whether it is the government’s position without any clue on whether it is the government’s position. On the face of it it’s incorrect and a misunderstanding of what triggering article 16 means as even if triggered the requirements of the protocol are sacrosanct. Also the Northern Ireland protocol benefits both sides of Northern Ireland and not just nationalists.

Starting to sound like art. 16 is imminent. We'll be in for a rough ride but I'm interested to see where it all goes.

Australia manage fine with 2 timezones at the same latitude in 1 country for 6 months of the year. This argument against stopping DST because of NI holds no water.

Id be in favour of getting rid of DST and staying on summer time but if you live north of the border and work south if it, two different time zones would be hell.

Australia is a continent so not comparable imo.

Being offset by an hour for half the year would certainly be an inconvenience (and I can't see much of a benefit to doing so), but hell is a bit of an exaggeration!

Many of us work with/across multiple timezones already. There are plenty of productivity tools in place to even take the thinking factor out of it.

That all being said, that inconvenience comes with way too little benefit to justify not staying in lockstep with NI.....given the rioting and bus being burnt out regarding the NI Protocol (largely by people who don't understand said protocol but just view it as an attack on their perceived Britishness), the decision to drop DST almost certainly won't happen without Britain making the same decision across the board.

Commuting is hell in general. That's my opinion anyway. If a 20 minute commute is now an 80 minute commute that's hell for the impacted person.

Outside of border areas, the effects would be negligible, given the level of North/South interaction.

EDIT: Not worth responding to such low grade bait.

DC in several threads you have made a point of pretending not to know how politics work in Ireland or even who senior politicians are (Micheál Martin, Michael D Higgins) only to have been caught out in all of these when presented with previous posts to the contrary.

So with this in mind do you seriously expect us to take your analysis of life in Ireland seriously or even dignify it with an answer? So many posters wasted time with you insisting that you were feigning ignorance by not knowing senior Irish politicians only for you to be caught out later.

The flip of that argument is that the UK can't be as less EUish as they want to because of Dublin. Because we chose to stay within the EU the UK gets an internal border.

A change in timezone won't affect them anymore than having two currencies, two different car reg regimes, or two different anything else.

The attempts to hang on to the same timezone because of something something Northern Ireland strike me as being very strange. There are clear benefits to public health in having more light in the evening when most people would get some exercise which more than balance out any discomfort at having a different timezone to the North.

The point is well-made. East-West issues regarding the timezone have a bigger practical effect than any North-South issues.

No the practical effect would be from the amount of people who cross the timezone or work and live in the different timezone. More people travel north south than east west. A time zone between Ireland and Britain would be more practical than one within Ireland

Does anyone commute east west daily? A construction worker would have to leave an hour earlier if the south gets rid of the hour change while the North keeps it. Most sites start at 7.30am and there is the commute time too.

Let's face it Blanch your motive is to try and split Ireland more here as you are a very sectarian person.

The point is an obvious baiting attempt.

You didn't say E/W had a bigger practical effect, you said N/S issues were negligible outside of the border counties. You've moved the goalposts onto a different pitch, Blanch.

So no, your point wasn't well made, even if I believed for a second it wasn't intentional. It fits altogether too conveniently into your constant attempts to other NI. You'd have us switch to bloody Pacific Time if you could hold it up as a difference with NI.

Seriously?

No, child, it really isn't. The time for any journey depends on distance and speed. Getting up an hour earlier won't make your work further away, and it won't make you travel more slowly. This already happens every years when the clocks change, remember.