PEOPLE IN south Kerry have unwittingly found themselves on a go-slow in recent weeks after their clocks suddenly began to go “cuckoo” and some households lost up to half an hour a week.
The phenomenon was spotted and documented by Valentia Island resident Patrick Curtin, and light has now been shed on the phenomenon – it was caused by a change in power.
Mr Curtin said some weeks back he noticed the early morning news bulletin was not chiming with the time on the electrically powered clock radio.
A small battery-operated travel clock seemed to be keeping perfect time, however.
“Three weeks ago I noticed the electric clock was not in time with the 6am news. The cooker clock was gone off as well. I said it to a few people, and they said their clocks had gone cuckoo as well.”
Mr Curtin began recording the time difference and overnight he had lost three minutes. Over seven days he recorded a loss of 23 minutes. The loss was usually overnight.
He contacted a local radio station about his experience and the station received a flood of calls recording the same experience in south Kerry, particularly around Cahersiveen.
People were out of kilter with the rest of the world and the people of south Kerry may have been “a bit slow” over the past few weeks, Mr Curtin said.
The phenomenon was finally traced to works being carried out on the ESB networks in Cahersiveen .
A spokesman for the ESB yesterday said the company had been upgrading work on the network and rather than have customers without power they had installed generators.
Unfortunately this may have had a “slight” impact on power in the area, and this could have affected electric clocks “This is essential maintenance for connectivity,” the ESB said.
The work was finishing and the network restored this week, meaning that perfect time is back in Cahersiveen.
For electric clocks to function properly a minimum frequency of 50HZ is needed, but the generators may have seen lower power frequencies, especially at night, meaning that when people woke in the morning their clocks would be behind, said Mr Curran after some research.
Older computers may also have been affected.