So, what time is it exactly then? That is the first question many of us will ask this morning on prying open our eyes to a new day and the latest changing of the hour.
If you have just woken and are reading this, the time changed with clocks going back in the wee hours of this morning - at 2am to be precise - which means that you should have that additional hour in bed.
This change prompts timely reminders from Government and, not before time this year, Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald issued a statement this weekend reminding the public that winter time will commence at 1am Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) on Sunday 25 October 2015.
All were advised that clocks and watches should be put back one hour at that time.
So why do we change the time?
The concept was initially conceived by New Zelander George Hudson in 1895. Germany and Austria introduced the measure in April 1916 but it was William Willett, apparently the great-great-grandfather of Coldplay singer Chris Martin, who advocated for the change and convinced the London parliament to introduce the measure.
The thinking was that by getting people out of bed earlier fewer valuable hours of light would be wasted during the summer.
In 1907 Willett published a pamphlet called The Waste of Daylight in which he proposed that the clocks should be advanced by 80 minutes in four incremental steps during April and reversed the same way during September.
Willett campaigned tirelessly to bring about his goal but the need to save coal following the outbreak of the First World War gave his campaign more impetus and a parliamentary bill allowing for the change was passed in May, 1916.
Germany had already implemented the measure and on Sunday, 21 May 1916, the clocks were advanced by an hour.
So what time is it then?
Most mobile devices will automatically update the time but if you forgot to set your watch back before you went to bed or failed to get up at 2am to do so, then you should be happy as you can now squeeze an extra hour out of your Sunday, just turn back the dial.
