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DUBLIN-BASED PRIMARY SCHOOL secretary Lisa Pounch is about to board a boat on a beach in Peguera, Mallorca with her family, hoping to realise a longtime dream – to see a total solar eclipse.

“I’ve always been into astronomy. I’ve always wanted to see a solar eclipse, I remember seeing the partial one back in 1999 and since then I’ve always had it on my bucket list to see a total one,” Pounch explained.

Her interest in astronomy began when she was living in America as a little girl, and she saw a news report about the Challenger space shuttle disaster on TV.

“I was about five or six, and I remember seeing the astronauts lined up in a picture on the front page of the newspaper the next morning, and I was fascinated from then. Today I’m here with my two teenage daughters – Emma’s on photography duty – and one of them has really taken up the interest too,” she explained.

While hundreds of people are queuing to get last minute eclipse glasses to take part in the major skywatching event from Dublin tonight, Pounch and many other Irish people have gone to Spain and further afield in the hopes of seeing a total eclipse.

Timings will vary along the Spanish path, with totality occurring from around 8.27pm, and lasting up to 110 seconds.

The eclipse is occurring low in the western sky close to the sunset, so getting an unobstructed horizon view will be crucial.

29-year-old Emma Meehan, a software business owner, is in San Sebastián for the big event, on a pre-honeymoon with her soon-to-be husband, just two weeks out from their wedding.

The decision to take their honeymoon before their wedding has been planned around the Galway woman’s dream of seeing a total eclipse.

“I’ve been following astronomy since the Covid-19 pandemic; it was just one of those habits that came about because of lockdown. It became a really good way to ground and centre myself. Plus, with the limits on how far you could go, it was a way to connect with the natural world from my back garden,” she said.

Coverage in San Sebastián will reach 99.7%, and Meehan has been researching the best spots to watch from this evening.

“We’re heading up to a cliff-side that has a really clear north-west view into the sea. The sun will set here before the eclipse has fully finished, so we’d actually see it dipping into the horizon,” Meehan said.

The couple had secured eclipse glasses from Astronomy Ireland well in advance, but their hotel had spares waiting on their bed when they arrived as well.

“We’re very excited, I’ve seen partial eclipses before but I think to see it this evening will be almost overwhelming,” she said.

For 49-year-old Anthony Lynch, an industrial painter from Stoneybatter, this is the second time he’s travelled abroad in pursuit of a total eclipse.

Previously he travelled to Texas, and wound up travelling out into “the middle of nowhere” to escape tornado warnings to get the perfect view.

“There were three of us on the trip, and we had lightning striking around us on the trip back, but we got the most amazing pictures, and I’ve been planning this trip since I got back from that one,” he said.

Lynch is in Porto Sagunto in Spain with his wife, who he says has “lost interest” in following him on astronomy photography expeditions at night in Dublin, but who is equally excited about the eclipse.

“I’ve been interested since I was a little boy. I used to watch ‘The Sky at Night’, the BBC programme, and I didn’t have a clue what your man was saying but I remember thinking, ‘I’d love to do that’,” Lynch explained.

The painter runs his own astronomy page where he shares photographs and updates, and he’s also excited to get a view of the Perseid meteor shower, which reaches its annual peak tonight.

When asked what’s so special about witnessing a total eclipse, Lynch says “you need to see it for yourself”.

“It feels like everything goes silent, and that Belt of Venus you get with a sunset, you see that 360 degrees all the surrounding way, and if you get a very good view you can see solar prominences flying off the sun, it is spectacular,” he added.

The three total eclipse seekers who spoke to The Journal will be sharing updates on their journeys in our liveblog.

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