{"id":45719,"date":"2025-09-05T17:42:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T17:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/45719\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T17:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T17:42:07","slug":"hungarys-viktor-orban-to-visit-dublin-for-ireland-match-without-meeting-government-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/45719\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungary\u2019s Viktor Orban to visit Dublin for Ireland match, without meeting Government \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban<\/a> is visiting Dublin to attend the Ireland vs Hungary soccer match in the Aviva Stadium<\/a> on Saturday, but will not meet anyone from the Government during the trip.<\/p>\n

In a statement to The Irish Times, the Department of Foreign Affairs<\/a> said: \u201cThis visit is taking place in a private capacity on the occasion of the Ireland-Hungary international football match. There are no official engagements planned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sources said there had been no requests for meetings with Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> or T\u00e1naiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mr Orban, a critic of the European Union (EU) and especially of European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, has previously clashed with the Taoiseach on EU matters.<\/p>\n

When contacted, the Hungarian embassy said it had no information about Mr Orban\u2019s visit and could not confirm or deny it. <\/p>\n

The embassy asked to know the source of the Irish Times\u2019 information, but news of Mr Orban\u2019s visit to Dublin was circulating widely on social media on Friday. <\/p>\n

Multiple far-right social media accounts have enthusiastically welcomed the Hungarian prime minister to Dublin.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Labour MEP Aodh\u00e1n \u00d3 R\u00edord\u00e1in<\/a> said in a statement that Mr Orban was not welcome to Dublin and promised to organise a protest with the Labour LGBTQ group outside the stadium. <\/p>\n

Mr Orban has been widely criticised by the EU, international organisations and other governments for restrictions on civil liberties, press freedom, academic freedom and hostility to migrants and minorities, including LGBTQ people.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Don\u2019t ruin the love story between Irish and Hungarian patriots\u2019: Viktor Orban criticises TaoiseachOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

A ban on the Budapest pride parade this year was ignored, however, and the march went ahead, a signal of domestic opposition to his regime.<\/p>\n

Diplomatic sources said a visit by a foreign head of government without any official events was not unusual if the visit was totally private \u2013 which is how the Hungarian authorities are understood to have flagged the visit to the Government.<\/p>\n

However, sources also speculated that members of the Government would also be attending the game, and were likely to meet Mr Orban. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban is visiting Dublin to attend the Ireland vs Hungary soccer match in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[13425,9,10,8104,52,18,13,14,6,25126,19,17,11,12,15,16,5765,5,6634,44,7,8,26163],"class_list":{"0":"post-45719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-aviva-stadium","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-department-of-foreign-affairs","12":"tag-dublin","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-featured-news","15":"tag-featurednews","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-hungary","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-latest-news","21":"tag-latestnews","22":"tag-main-news","23":"tag-mainnews","24":"tag-micheal-martin","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","27":"tag-simon-harris","28":"tag-top-stories","29":"tag-topstories","30":"tag-viktor-orban"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}