AS THE IRELAND men’s football team prepares for its Nations League fixtures against Israel, the ‘away’ game to be held in Serbia before we host the ‘home’ leg in the small Irish town of Debrecen, Hungary, Benjamin Netanyahu reminded the world why so many football fans don’t want to see the games go ahead.

In his address to the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu, who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court in connection with war crimes and crimes against humanity, referred to those who walked out on his speech as ‘moral cowards’ and slated an array of perceived enemies, including the UK, France and New York mayor Zohran Mamdani. 

Slipping the surly bonds of morality entirely, Netanyahu even went so far as to tell the world that what Israel has been doing in Palestine for the last three years is actually “the opposite of genocide”. Huh.

Who would have known that the opposite of genocide involves just as much killing of one specific ethnic group as an actual genocide? Maybe it’s like how when you touch something cold enough it feels like a burn. Personally, I always thought the “opposite of genocide” would look a lot more like that Coke ad from the 1970s or the music video for a World Cup anthem. Instead, it seems to look identical to every other genocide in history. Strange that. 

At one point during his speech, Netanyahu held up a beeper and asked the audience: ‘Remember the beepers? Remember them?’, repeating the question like a club comic, before landing the punchline. ‘Well, I can tell you this. Hezbollah certainly remembers them’. The attack Netanyahu is referring to killed 42 people, a dozen of whom were civilians, including children.

Netanyahu’s expectedly bellicose rhetoric has been reflected in how Israel is approaching its upcoming match with Ireland. The Israeli FA hit out at Ireland coach Heimer Hallgrimson who defended his players this week as “playing against the genocide” as opposed to playing with the genocide. Hallgrimson, his players and the FAI have all faced calls to boycott the match dating back to when the fixture was first drawn earlier this year, but barring any very late drama, the games will go ahead.

In response to Hallgrimson’s comments, the Israel FA issued a response on X which read: “We have contributed to the world and humanity in countless fields, earning an impressive number of Nobel Prizes along the way. Unfortunately, we have not yet found a cure for stupidity, ignorance and hypocrisy displayed by the Ireland coach.” 

We have contributed to the world and humanity in countless fields, earning an impressive number of Nobel Prizes along the way. Unfortunately, we have not yet found a cure for stupidity, ignorance and hypocrisy displayed by @IrelandFootball team coach. We’re not playing with…

— ISRAEL FA (@ISRAELFA) September 21, 2026

By next weekend the matches will have been played, either way. We’ll have won, or we’ll have lost, or we’ll have drawn or some combination of those things. Many fans will resume supporting the men’s national team as usual, whereas some will presumably be soured on the team for some time. What is certain, however, is that regardless of result, Israel will carry on as a rogue state, ethnically cleansing the West Bank and stealing its land and resources, while those who remain in the rubble of Gaza are left to starve, die of disease and evade the airstrikes that persist in spite of the ceasefire-in-name-only. 

When one considers the horror that is unfolding elsewhere in the world, it does seem somewhat surreal that anyone could possibly get worked up over this week’s confusion around Dublin’s winter lights, but here we are. 

A press release issued by Dublin City Council this week originally stated that the Winter Lights — which have caused controversy in the past for being called Winter Lights instead of Christmas Lights because that’s the kind of thing some people are lucky enough to be in a position to get angry about — would be moved from December to January. 

The original statement was very clear on this point. Needlessly clear, almost. “Dublin Winter Lights’ moves to January!” was the subject line, and the body of the release went on to say specifically that the lights would be moving from December to January i.e. not in December any more. 

Any kind of anger or mystification at this move is a little more justifiable. Not because it’s another blow struck in the name of some conspiracy to secularise Ireland’s public sphere, but because taking away one of the nicer things about Christmas in Dublin and moving it until after Christmas is bloody stupid. Worries were compounded when Lord Mayor Daryl Barron seemed to confirm the news, pointing out that there would still be festivities to be found in the capital during December. 

“We’re still going to have Twinkle Town in Dublin at Christmastime!” he said, which is a sentence that one might argue is much closer to the “opposite of genocide” sentiment that Netanyahu was supposedly going for.

Thankfully, as it turns out, Dublin City Council actually aren’t doing what they originally said they were doing. In fact, so committed are they to Christmas, they issued a clarifying statement that included the word Christmas no fewer than 34 times.

There! Isn’t it comforting to know that far from being at war with some sense of Judeo-Christian heritage that we’ve all apparently been celebrating each year by embarking on such Nazarene pursuits as ice-skating, spending thousands of euros on material gifts and, as will be the case this year, eating meat on a Friday, Dublin City Council’s only real crime is being at war with the basic precepts of organisation, planning and communication. 

Even now, it remains totally unclear whether the original plan to move the lights out of December was indeed the plan, or if it was simply poor communication. But there is a case to be made that it doesn’t really matter.

After all, keeping the winter lights on all the way up until February gives the impression that the council is out of ideas for how to make Dublin nice all year round, and so they’re trying to spread the magic of Christmas even thinner across the remaining winter months. Sort of like how you need to make your tubs of Roses last into the post-Christmas season even as shrinkflation withers your Strawberry Dreams away into nothingness.

This is something that Barron himself admitted, saying: “People will perceive January as a dreary time for the city in the new year.” He’s obviously not wrong, but it’s not exactly a matter of perception either (Dublin is never going to beat the ‘dreary in January’ allegations no matter how many buildings your project your pretty lights onto, in fact we’re lucky to beat the dreary allegations at any time of year). 

Hopefully they’ll have enough time to come up with something good by St Brigid’s Day. Perhaps a St Brigid’s Cross pinwheel affixed to the top of The Spire like a weather vane, spinning in place until halfway through April.