Sat Jul 18 2026 - 07:15 • 4 MIN READSkin cancer is now the leading cancer in Ireland and one in 38 of us will develop melanoma. Wear sunscreen. Photograph: Getty Images An air of near-emergency has settled over the country as the heatwave inches towards its third week. Night-time temperatures have not dipped below sweltering for more days than anyone can count. With crankiness levels forecast to peak on Sunday, Ireland has plummeted 17 places in the World Happiness Index. People who didn’t get around to booking a holiday abroad are congratulating themselves on their foresight, and everyone who did is googling “how much to cancel a flight” before deciding that forfeiting €1,135 to not have to go to Spain is actually good value. So as we brace for more terrible, glorious weather in the coming week, here are all your pressing – and not so pressing – heatwave questions answered. Should I put my Dryrobe up on Vinted? Few of us managed to survive the last great national unpleasantness, the Covid pandemic, without acquiring one. Should you now sell it, since you no longer require it for “wild swimming” - or –s people outside of Dublin refer to it, “swimming”? Don’t. Even if you never go “wild swimming” again, the Dryrobe will come in handy for what the Copernicus Institute warns will be winters of the future. See point 11 below.Are tan lines cool now? The 1990s are cool again – and along with the revival of Take That and the Rachel haircut, tan lines are suddenly everywhere. In further proof, if any were needed, of the human capacity for finding novel ways to hasten our own demise, the hashtag #tanlines – accompanied by photos of stark white tan lines on brown bodies to prove that the tan is “real” – has 1.2 million views on Instagram. Here’s something else that’s real: skin cancer is now the leading cancer in Ireland and one in 38 of us will develop melanoma. Wear sunscreen. (Also, like Take That, tan lines were not actually cool in the 1990s, merely unavoidable.)Can I wear shorts to the office? Are you French? Are you a lifeguard? Are you under 35? If you replied no to all three questions, you’ve answered yourself. If you must really wear shorts, then at the least – in the words of essayist David Sedaris – don’t come into the office like you’re about to mow the lawn. Is it okay to give my child a 99 for dinner? With 250 calories, 3.5g of protein and 9.1g of fat, a 99 is a solid nutritional foundation to any meal, but you may want to add a bit of fruit and a barbecued chicken burger. During extreme heat, when some of us sweat up to three litres a day, it’s recommended to increase your fluid intake. Cut down on fatty steak to avoid meat sweats – diet-induced thermogenesis – and eat water-rich food such as strawberries, melon, cucumbers and soggy Tayto sandwiches. Can you go swimming in a lake or river? The question really is how badly do you want a bout of cryptosporidium? Former minister for the environment Eamon Ryan pointed out this week that in the 1980s, 500 of our rivers were pristine – now only 20 are. We are “drinking, washing and swimming in water laced with our own excrement”, he wrote. Still, the occasional dip in your own faeces won’t kill you – not quickly anyway.Can I hose my garden? Not unless you want to run the risk of Robert and Siobhán next door – jealously eyeing your delphiniums all summer – reporting you to Uisce Éireann. A water-conservation order came into effect on Thursday and runs until August 26th in several counties – so no hosing your garden or filling the Lidl inflatable hot tub, or you could be fined between €125 and €5,000. In reality, only you know whether your ritual Saturday morning 6am powerwashing of the yacht has annoyed Robert and Siobhán enough to actually report you. Should you stop wearing pyjamas? Here we turn to the only nation sufficiently expert in matters of etiquette, heatwaves and nudity – but disappointingly even the French are stumped by this one. The country’s heatwave information service concludes that the optimal night-time attire depends on many factors such as how much you sweat. If you decide not to go fully continental, wear cotton rather than synthetic fabrics. And if you do sleep in the nip, put something on before you go out to water your gladioli or it’ll definitely be the last straw for Robert and Siobhán.Should newspapers be publishing photos of people enjoying themselves in the sun during a climate crisis? The question of whether it is ethical to “glamorise the sun” has been raised in recent days. Newspapers generally try to report what is happening as opposed to what we think ought to be happening, so if people are enjoying themselves in the sun, you can expect to see photographs of it. The Irish Times has published photos of happy beachgoers but also at least 16 articles or letters about the climate crisis in the last week alone.Are hospitality establishments legally obliged to give a glass of water to anyone who asks for one in a heatwave? In short, no. They’re not even obliged to give free water to customers, let alone sweaty passersby. Bring your own.Is it okay to complain about the heat now? Yes. See point 11 below.Is this climate change? No single weather event can be directly attributed to climate change, but we are now seeing precisely the effects we were warned about – the pivot from a climate that was predictably mild, moist and variable to one characterised by more extremes. The last few weeks have reminded me of a quote that once went viral on social media: for most of us, climate change would manifest as a series of disasters viewed through our phones in locations closer and closer to where you live, until one day, you’re the one filming it.IN THIS SECTION