Have you noticed this Mayo town is 30% darker at night?

When midnight strikes in Newport, the public lights dim down to 75% brightness until 6am.

This is what reducing light pollution in all ecosystems looks like in practice.

At a county level, Mayo County Council has retrofitted 73% of public lighting to LED, achieving a 50% reduction in light pollution.

Mayo County Council is the leading local authority in this area among their peers.

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In the first six months of this year, Mayo County Council saved over €34,000 in their public lighting bill. This means that the energy saving of 6% or 171,806kWh.

Light pollution is “often overlooked” because there is currently no legislation in this area in Ireland, making this country an outlier in the EU, Georgia MacMillan told the Mayo County Council Environment and Climate Change SPC on Thursday afternoon.

“But light pollution is an environmental pollutant recognized at EU level, and it's no longer acceptable to illuminate skies unnecessarily for that reason.”

In addition to dimming of lights, changing the colour temperature of lights is also very important, Georgia MacMillan told the Mayo County Council Environment and Climate Change SPC on Thursday afternoon.

Hopes to expand the dimming pilot are subject to approval from Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII).

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Cllr Peter Flynn expressed his frustration that “TII are still dragging their heels, we've been talking about this probably for at least two years now.”

Looking to the future, “if it works in Newport, this is something that can be rolled out right across the county, and could have a huge impact in so many different ways.”

Beyond public lights, the light pollution from business premises and even flood lights from pitches were also highlighted by Mayo Dark Skies.

Redirecting the overflow light from flood lights can be achieved with blinkers. Reducing the

The future is bright for Mayo Dark Sky Park as it is set to host over 200 delegates in Westport next month at its International Artificial Light at Night Conference (ALAN), which takes place in the Westport Woods Hotel from Tuesday, October 28th to Friday, October 31st.

For the first time, the Programme for Government commits to “Promote and encourage an expansion of Dark Sky Ireland national parks and reserves.”

This was “quite a significant step forward,” Georgia MacMillan says.

Mayo Dark Sky was also awarded ‘Dark Sky Place of the Year Award 2024’ from DarkSky International and hopes to retain the maintain standards.

Cllr Peter Flynn praised Mayo Dark Skies and commented that they were “an example of an organisation demonstrating how to bring people with you. I think what you've done with the whole organization has been brilliant and working with you in years to come.”