The Land of Midnight Twilight.

It always surprises Irish city dwellers when they are told that it never really gets dark here in late June.

After the Sun sets in the North West,if the night is clear, you can see the glow of the Sun travelling right across the northern horizon all through the (short) night before it rises again in the North East.

People associate this with more northerly climes,but if you look at a globe
you will see that Donegal is just 12 degrees south of the Arctic Circle.

(The warm Gulf Stream fools us into thinking we are much farther from the North Pole, in fact Ireland is at the same latitude as frigid Tierra del Fuego.)

So the Sun is around 15 degrees or less below the horizon at midsummer,depending on where you are. (This is why we see NLCs but beware of confusing this glow with NLCs).

Pointing this out is a neat way to introduce "ordinary humans" to the sky.

Yea, we don't so much get night as a period of dusk follewd immediately by dawn. I really hate that. It's not as pronounced here in Maynooth as it is in Cavan but it's still very much there.

I always look forward to the Perseids for two reasons:
1) Cool meteors
2) It actually gets dark again around about that time!

In fact, for almost 3 weeks either side of June 21st, there is no complete darkess at our latitude. After that time, there is, albeit quite short.

Yes, its certainly unusual to see a dark sky and a bright northern horison, this is something I look out for at that time of the year.