It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Halloween isn't even here yet, but the Christmas lights have already started appearing in Dublin city. DublinTown has commenced putting up the city’s Christmas lights so they are ready for switch on in mid-November. This year 25 streets will have energy-efficient lighting for the festive season. DublinTown has been responsible for lighting Dublin's streets up at Christmas for 13 years. There were concerns that the Christmas lights wouldn't appear this year due to the ongoing energy crisis but DublinTown has instead decided to switch them on for shorter periods of time. The Christmas lights are also low-energy LED lighting. The Grafton Street display uses just one-third of the electricity used by just one home electric shower. The company shared, "Their presence gives a sense of joy to the city and adds to the buzz and excitement as Christmas approaches." It takes 30 people working through the night, over 4 weeks, and over 200 hours to completely erect all the lights. Unfortunately, there won't be a public event to switch on the lights this year. However, they will be officially switched on in November and light up the city each day until early January. The Christmas lights will be switched off earlier than usual this year. The lights usually go on at around 2 pm, but that will likely be pushed to 4 pm this year.