The Grafton Street Christmas lights are being switched on this evening

Kicking the celebrations up a gear, the annual event marks the start of the festive season for many and will be broadcast live via social media to ensure everyone can still join in on the festivities.

Dublin is about to get a whole lot more festive this evening as the Grafton Street Christmas lights will be switched on at approximately 6:54pm. Tasked with putting up the lights each year, staff at DublinTown have been working behind the scenes to ensure that this year is no different. Grafton Street will be up first with Henry Street, South William Street, Capel Street and many others to follow at various times throughout the rest of the week. Given the circumstances, there won't be a live event as in previous years, but there will be a live broadcast from the balcony of the iconic Bewleys Café and the public can tune in to watch via the DublinTown social media from 6:45pm today. Who will be doing the honours this year? Well, that's by far the best part. Teaming up with Temple Street Children's Hospital, one of the children currently undergoing treatment there will get to push the magic button and switch on the lights remotely from the hospital. Consisting of over 1 million low energy LED light bulbs and over 300,000 individual light bulbs (that's 4km of Christmas lights if you stretched it out!), it's fair to say that the area will be very well illuminated for the next seven weeks. Encouraging people to continue supporting local businesses in the run-up to Christmas, Richard Guiney CEO of DublinTown commented that this year's even "means so much more than any other year".

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