“DUBLIN CITY COUNCIL Dublin Winter Lights’ moves to January!” a press release from the city council, sent at 2.31pm on Tuesday 22 September to this newsroom, among others across Ireland, proclaimed.

“The hugely popular ‘Dublin City Council Dublin Winter Lights’ Festival is moving from December to the New Year,” it continued.

“It will start mid-January and finish on St Brigid’s/Imbolc public holiday weekend.”

As it turns out, this is not true. Tony Smithers of the council’s events section haltingly assured listeners and RTÉ’s Sarah McInerney on Morning Ireland today that the lights will be up in December, as usual.

The lights will merely be extended through January to St Brigid’s Day on 1 February, he said.

The council’s winter lights are annually shrouded in some minor form of controversy.

In 2023, the lights faced some confected controversy over their name – many people online had been under the impression that they were previously officially called the Christmas Lights, and this had been changed to Winter Lights to cater to people who don’t celebrate Christmas.

The term Winter Lights was used because the local authority is not describing all the festive lights put up in the city – for example, the more traditional lights on Grafton Street are not included as part of the ‘Winter Lights’ programme.

Instead, when it uses the name Winter Lights, the council is referring to a specific series of light display events, often projected onto large buildings in Dublin

The council was forced to clarify that the lights display has been called the Winter Lights since 2018, although they are still referred to colloquially as the Christmas lights.

Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

In 2017, there was upset over overcrowding issues at the lights’ ceremony. The following year, 2018, complaints racked up over ‘Scrooge-like’ behaviour from the council for not holding a lights’ ceremony.

Today, questioned numerous times on the facts laid out in the council’s press release, in which he was quoted, Smithers admitted there was perhaps some flawed communication. But the lights were always going to be up in December, he insisted, extending the usual five-week programme to nine weeks.

“Tony, what’s going on here?” an incredulous McInerney asked. “I mean, we had Daryl [Barron, the Lord Mayor of Dublin] on the programme on Wednesday, and Justin [McCarthy, the journalist] asked him three different times, why is this not happening in December? And at no point did he say, it’s happening in December.”

“I can give you certain clarity that nothing has changed,” Smithers replied.

“We were always going to have our lighting and projections in December, Christmas themed. We’re going to have our fantastic Christmas events and celebrate Christmas.”

Having had a text come in, the presenter said: “Councillor Nial Ring says this is a massive U-turn, and he thanks you for, as he put it, seeing the light.”

Well now.