On match days, Peadar Browns pub in Dublin’s historic Liberties area is usually jam-packed with football fans piling in to watch the game on various screens. As kickoff approached in the Republic of Ireland’s Nations League game against Israel on Sunday, there was a similarly busy crowd. With one significant difference, though: none of the televisions were on.
The pub has made a deliberate decision not to show the game tonight in protest against Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. At his last count, it included 140 pubs and bars in Ireland and abroad. He expected the number had risen before kickoff as tumultuous events within the Ireland team reverberated around the country.
Ireland, a staunch and long-standing ally of the Palestinian cause, has been thrust into the global spotlight over whether the team will play the two scheduled games against Israel. Brown compares the atmosphere in Dublin to one of the most enduring sporting dramas in modern Irish history. Saipan became a national drama when Ireland captain Roy Keane left the 2002 World Cup squad in Japan after a confrontation with manager Mick McCarthy over training facilities.
This time the public debate across the island of Ireland is not about football standards, but moral ones. In Derry, in the north of Ireland, Liam Doherty, another pub owner refusing to show the game, describes a similar sense of mobilisation. It’s all people can talk about.
We are past the point of symbolic gestures and hollow words.” It’s not unanimous, but Irish public opinion is clearly against tonight’s fixture taking place. A poll of Irish football supporters found 76 percent opposed to the match going ahead. Among athletes, 63 percent of members of the Professional Footballers’ Association of Ireland voted against playing the game.
But that groundswell of public sentiment has been ignored by those in charge of the sport in the country, the Football Association of Ireland (FAI). In November, 93 percent of FAI members voted for the association to seek Israel’s suspension from UEFA competitions. Yet when the FAI voted in July on whether the Republic of Ireland should play Israel, it chose to proceed with the fixtures.
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