The event will become visible just after 6pm, with maximum coverage of the Sun occurring shortly after 7pm before the Moon clears the Sun by around 8pm. Every county will get a view, weather permitting, though the far southwest is the sweet spot: the Director of Kerry Dark Sky Tourism, Aoibheann Lambe, told The Journal that up to 97% obscuration is predicted in the region, only a small percentage away from totality. The last time Ireland saw anything comparable was back in 1999. Clear skies will be everything, so keep an eye on Met Éireann’s August forecast in the run-up to Wednesday.

The single most important rule: never look directly at the Sun, even when it is almost entirely covered. Certified eclipse glasses that carry the ISO 12312-2 standard are required for the full duration of the event – ordinary sunglasses, however dark, will not protect your eyes and can cause permanent damage. If you cannot get your hands on a pair, a simple pinhole projector made from two sheets of card lets you watch the eclipse’s progress safely on the ground, projecting a tiny crescent Sun onto the surface below. Many observatories and astronomy groups around the country are hosting supervised viewing events with proper equipment, and it is worth checking whether your local club is holding one.

There is a distinctly Irish twist to the science, too. As RTÉ News reported, Professor Peter Gallagher, Director at the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies at Dunsink Observatory, will be aboard an Irish Air Corps plane some 400km off the west coast during the eclipse. Using an Italian-made solar telescope, the team plans to capture high-resolution images of the Sun’s corona – the faint outer atmosphere only visible when the Sun is obscured. A NASA crew will carry out similar work above the north Atlantic, west of Iceland.

For everyone else, the advice is simple: grab your eclipse glasses, hope the notoriously unpredictable Irish clouds stay away, and step outside on Wednesday evening. Schools, workplaces and families across the country are already planning where they will be when the sky dims, and social media is likely to fill with photos of the crescent Sun within minutes. Whatever happens, it is a moment worth pausing for – the next chance to see anything like it from Irish soil will not come around until 2090.