Eleven days later, Longford Town hosted Cork City at Bishopsgate Stadium, wearing their away yellow-and-blue strip in solidarity with Kyiv. The gesture was endearingly heartfelt and obviously futile: whatever else he was doing that weekend, Vladimir Putin is unlikely to have been keeping tabs on the League of Ireland First Division. To support a League of Ireland First Division club is to routinely go off the beaten track without a map or a guidebook. But while the Premier Division has changed, down in the basement of the First Division, the old eccentric League of Ireland – that masochist’s paradise promising anything and everything aside from a good time – rocks on regardless. The First Division is Ireland, but rawer, wider, wilder – an upside down that makes you want to never go back to the right side up.

Source: The Irish Times February 27, 2026 16:00 UTC