IRELAND FANS ATTENDING the friendly against Switzerland in March face a dry night.

That is because the 25 March game will be played on Good Friday. The scheduling of the Aviva Stadium clash means that fans will not have the opportunity to pack the Lansdowne Road pubs like normal and that publicans will miss out on a windfall day.

The law keeping pubs closed on Good Friday has long been a bugbear for publicans and the Licensed Vintners Association, which represents 600 Dublin publicans, wants the government to enact legislation allowing pubs to be open on the day.

Donall O’Keeffe described the current situation regarding licensing laws on Good Friday as “ludicrous” and called on the government to remove the “archaic law” immediately.

“Every Good Friday we have tens of thousands of tourists wandering around Dublin asking why they can’t go into a pub for a drink. Now we are going to have up to 50,000 soccer fans facing the same problem. Not to mention the tens of thousands who will want to watch the match in their local pub.

“There is less than four months to go to Easter, there is no real opposition to this measure and we have the Easter 2016 celebrations. It looks like a no brainer but to date the Government has been dragging its heels on the issue.”

The Easter weekend is expected to attract around 250,000 tourists to Ireland.