Belfast, Northern Ireland - In Northern Ireland, as in the rest of the world, it seems the sabbath is no longer special. The Irish Football Association lifted the last of the Sunday prohibitions this week by voting to allow matches on the sabbath for the first time in the sport's history.
Delegates to an IFA emergency meeting on Wednesday night voted 91 to 14 in favour of dumping the 60-year-old ban, bringing the Irish League in line with the rest of the world.
Up until the 1990s virtually nothing was open on Sundays in Northern Ireland, as the powerful Protestant fundamentalist Christian lobby ensured playgrounds were locked and shops and pubs closed.
Gradually the church's stranglehold has slipped, with football remaining as the last bastion - until the IFA were spurred into action when a number of clubs in the Irish League threatened to use the Human Rights Act to overturn the ban.
They faced opposition from the Democratic Unionist party, led by Ian Paisley, which opposes any sporting events on Sunday. The culture and sports minister, Edwin Poots, is a DUP member.
Earlier this year an attempt by the IFA leadership to ditch the ban did not receive the necessary two-thirds majority, with opposition coming mainly from teams in Protestant church-run leagues.
The IFA has admitted in an internal report that the Sunday ban contravened its own anti-racist and anti-sectarian policy, concluding that it discriminated against Catholics and other religious groups in Northern Ireland.
The IFA's chief executive, Howard Wells, had led the charge to ditch the rule. All the senior clubs, especially those in the Irish League, were in favour of dumping the ban.
Although gaelic sports were and are traditionally played on Sundays across Ireland, north and south, other sports such as rugby have never been played in Northern Ireland on the sabbath.
The rugby ban was overturned two years ago when Ulster played a European home game at Ravenhill stadium in south-east Belfast, just a short walk from Paisley's Martyrs Memorial Free Presbyterian Church.
The Free Presbyterian Church has denounced the latest move, with the moderator, the Reverend David McIlveen, saying football on the sabbath would damage Sunday schools. He said many evangelical Christians from Africa who had recently settled in Northern Ireland would be equally dismayed at the decision.
"It will also put players who hold deep Christian convictions in a very difficult situation, to a point where they won't be able in conscience to play on the Sabbath," he said.
At the 1982 World Cup a member of the Northern Ireland international squad, midfielder Johnny Jameson, ruled himself out of selection for the quarter-final clash against France because it was scheduled for a Sunday. Jameson told then manager Billy Bingham that as a born-again Christian he could not play.