Colm Fitzpatrick
Priests warn of ‘horrendous’ problems from EU clock change
An EU plan that would see a different time-zone on either side of the border would leave parishioners not only divided by the border, but also by different clocks. Local priests have warned of “horrendous” confusion for parishioners with one saying “God help us” if the plan goes ahead.
The European Parliament voted last week to abolish the twice-yearly switch between summer and winter time across the EU, and if the UK leaves the EU as expected, this would mean there would be two time zones on the island of Ireland, with four dioceses and several parishes split between time zones.
“It would be very confusing,” Clones parish priest Msgr Richard Mohan told The Irish Catholic. “It would be very, very difficult for people to know exactly what time Mass is at in any particular place.
“Obviously, these kinds of things can be worked out, but it would leave people confused all the time. For making appointments for making any particular thing, all kinds of things – “’Which time are we working on?’ ‘Is it your time or my time?’,” he asked.
Mass
He said one of the parish’s two churches on the Monaghan side of the border is mostly attended on Sunday mornings by people from the North. He said this would lead to predictable confusion with people leaving their homes just before 10am to attend a Mass a few miles away that is at 9am. All of that would be horrendously confusing for people,” he said, adding that the border would pose “unique challenges” to attempts to roll out the plan.
“There are very few people who understand what the border really looks like in reality, that it’s a very crooked line,” he said, adding that the parish even has two houses divided by the border.
Fr La Flynn, parish priest of Pettigo which lies on the Donegal-Fermanagh border, said he suspects the people who would be most confused by the issue would be those who didn’t have to deal with it daily. “God help us,” if it goes ahead, he said.
Proposal
Predicting that local people would have to learn to cope if the proposal goes ahead, he said occasional visitors would be most likely to be wrong-footed by time changes.
“People will get used it. People have an amazing capacity to get used to things,” he said. “The confusion will really impact those who don’t live with it on a day-to-day basis as people do locally.”
“The potential for confusion and annoyance and all of that is more for those who won’t live with it day by day, who only interface with it occasionally or irregularly,” he said, adding: “I really cannot imagine that Ireland and Britain can deal with two different time zones.”
Although the Government has not taken a formal position following the European Parliament vote to implement the plan from April 2021, the proposal has yet to be approved by the European Council of EU leaders. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he would be opposed to Ireland having two separate time zones.