[https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/ben-lowry-and-now-we-are-in-the-very-darkest-evenings-in-northern-ireland-4439962](https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/ben-lowry-and-now-we-are-in-the-very-darkest-evenings-in-northern-ireland-4439962)
**By Ben Lowry**
We are now in the very darkest phase of the year in Ulster.
In writing that I am not referring to the winter solstice, less than a fortnight away. I mean that Monday will be one of the shortest afternoons.
For reasons astronomers would understand, but I don’t, the earliest sunsets of the year are this coming week, pre solstice. The latest sunrise is at the end of December.
From Monday until Saturday, the sun in [**Belfast**](https://www.newsletter.co.uk/topic/belfast) will set at 3.57pm, before on Sunday the sun will then edge to a later setting time of 3.58pm. This is why daylight watchers such as me notice the brighter evenings as soon as early January, because by then the sunset time has been getting later for almost a month.
But on Monday the sun will rise at 8.35am, and will continue to appear at a later and later time each day until December 26, when dawn is at 8.46am, as it is for each of the last five days of December.
Thus, while December 22 this year will be the shortest day of the year in terms of absolute daylight – the amount of time between sunrise and sunset – the darkest evenings are now. Non early birds like me are notice sunset more than sunrise.
The weather forecast for today, tomorrow and early next week in Belfast is grey, dark and damp. A fitting metaphor for this exact moment in the season, after which I look forward both to seasonal cheer and increasing evening light!
by Seamus_Hean3y
8 comments
Prophetic in more ways than one. Sounds like a weather forecast and a prediction all
In one.
This is the editor of a local newspaper who seems genuinely surprised by the concept of seasons and the axial tilt of the earth. He’ll be stunned when he discovers it happens every year and in reverse in the Spring.
Idiotic 6th form prose from a manchild
Oh Ben.
I think Lowry is making the case for going back to GMT+0:25 here?
I want to reach out to Ben and tell him that things will get better. Im worried about him. The man seems permanently depressed. When hes on Talkback or Newsnight he often seems on the verge of tears, often brought about by his own hysteric publications that exist outside of actual reality.
Ben
aw poor wee Benji, wont someone think of the poor wee pradisans
Fair play to Ben for somehow wringing something that almost resembles an article out of the google results for “Belfast sunset sunrise December 2024”. Aspirational levels of phoning it in.