It will be the last eclipse of the Sun visible from Ireland until 2024.

A partial solar eclipse is set to take place over Ireland on Tuesday, 25 October as it sweeps across Europe, west Asia, northeast Africa and the Middle East. In a statement on its website, Astronomy Ireland said that for mid-Ireland the eclipse will begin at 10.06 am before ending at 11.40 am and will be "fairly decent". It stated that the eclipse will be at its greatest, however, at 10.52 am, at which point one-fifth of the Sun's diameter will be covered by the moon. Partial eclipses of the Sun are rarely visible from Ireland and occur roughly every couple of years, with the upcoming eclipse set to be the last visible in the country until 2024. To mark the event, Astronomy Ireland is running an Eclipse Watch at its Headquarters in Blanchardstown on Tuesday morning. It said that telescopes with special filters fitted to the front of them will give everyone who attends the event a "safe, close-up view of the eclipse". "If you cannot make it to the Astronomy Ireland Eclipse Watch, you can still witness the eclipse from anywhere in Ireland by using simple techniques like the pinhole method I describe in this month's Astronomy Ireland magazine," founder of Astronomy Ireland David Moore said. "However, you should not look at the Sun at any stage of the eclipse with the naked eye, and certainly not with binoculars or telescopes as you can permanently damage your eyesight in a fraction of a second." On its website, the American Astronomical Society describes pinhole projection as "a convenient method for safe viewing of the partially eclipsed Sun". "You simply pass sunlight through a small opening (for example, a hole punched in an index card) and project an image of the Sun onto a nearby surface (for example, another card, a wall, or the ground)," it explains. "Note that pinhole projection does not mean looking at the Sun through a pinhole! You project sunlight through the hole onto a surface and look at the solar image on the surface." For more information on how to view Tuesday's eclipse safely, visit Astronomy Ireland's website here or the American Astronomical Society at this link.