Ireland, like many nations, possesses an incredibly strong appetite for sport. Consistently medaling in the olympics,being ranked among the best rugby teams in the word, producing countless professional combat athletes competing at the highest levels and being the home of the GAA which is a totally unique sport to Ireland, it is not a stretch to say that Ireland is truly a hotbed of sport.
If we take this to be true though, a question is raised. Why is one of the most popular sports in Ireland done at such a poor level throughout the country? This of course being association football/soccer. Often called soccer in Ireland to differentiate from the equally if not more popular Gaelic football, there are well over 1000 association football clubs registered in the country with most studies and estimates placing the number of active players at an informal as well as professional level well above the 300,000 mark. Alongside the sheer number of players involved, football remains one of the most watched sports in the country with massive amounts of people supporting an English Premier League team.
Yet despite this massive interest in the game, Ireland have never seemed to deliver consistent results. Currently ranked 62 in the Fifa World rankings nestled in between Jamaica and Burkina Faso at time of writing, Ireland is clearly not anywhere close to the elite in terms of footballing ability. A bright period in the 1990s saw the “Boys in Green” reach a World Cup Quarter final yet they have not been close to replicating this since. Not qualifying for a World Cup since 2002 and only qualifying for 2 of the last 9 European Championships show how drastic the fall from grace has been. This series of articles will aim to examine the history of football in Ireland and identify some of the key issues which have hampered on field results.
History of Football in Ireland
The introduction – John McAlery
Football as it is known today can be traced back to the late 1800s in Ireland with a man called John McAlery commonly credited with introducing association football to the country. While historically McAlery was regarded as the sole party responsible for introducing football to Ireland, in recent years discoveries have been made which call that narrative into question. It is thought that two games took place in Belfast in 1875 and 1877 by members of the Ulster Cricket Club and Windsor Rugby Club respectively, with Windsor secretary James Calder apparently hoping for the club to play Caledonian. That would fall through and Windsor would be forced to field teams composed of their own members. There have also been other reports of a match taking place in Cork in 1877 towards the end of 1877, though this was quite unofficial and differed in that each team fielded 15 players, similarly to a GAA match. Ultimately it would be McAlery who really brought the game to elevated heights in Ireland and his status as possibly the most important figure of Irish football history can not be disputed.
A keen sportsman with a penchant for cricket it would not be until 1878 where he was exposed to football for the first time. He was on honeymoon in Edinburgh where he witnessed his first game of football. Enamoured he took it back to Belfast and went about setting up a football community in Ireland. McAlery would invite two teams from Scotland to Belfast for an exhibition game in 1878. The match between Caledonian and Queens Park would be among the first ever association football matches to take place on Irish soil and perhaps the most widely publicised whetting the appetite for football among Belfast. Queen’s Park would ultimately win 3-2. This would culminate in the founding of Ireland’s first ever football club, Cliftonville which came into the world in 1879.
Formation of the IFA/LFA
Following the formation of Cliftonville several other teams would be formed over the next year or so which would lead to the formation of the IFA (Irish Football Association). The first tournaments established by the IFA were the Irish Cup which was first won by Moyola Park who beat Cliftonville in the first iteration of the tournament. 10 years later would see the establishment of the Irish Football League which is actually the second oldest football league in the world. Formed in 1890 it was around these years that football began spreading from the stronghold of the north of Ireland and made its way to other urban centres around the country. This would see the rise of several new clubs being created such as Dublin University in 1883, Bohemians FC in 1890, Shelbourne in 1895 and St James Gate in 1902 to name but a few.
The growth of football, primarily in and around the Dublin area saw the need for a governing body which was met when the Leinster Football Association was established in 1892. The LFA was set to govern and organise football in the Leinster region of the country, primarily being Dublin yet was treated as a sub branch of the IFA which was seen as the national body. Along with regional tournaments such as the Leinster Senior Cup and the Leinster Senior League, teams in the LFA would often play in IFA run tournaments such as the Irish Cup and the Irish league. Most notably perhaps being Bohemians and Shelbourne who both won Irish Cups during the 1900s and would even contest an all Dublin final in 1908 when Bohemians emerged victorious.
Eventual Split
However despite the success of Dublin based teams, friction would develop between the IFA and the LFA. money was always in short supply within the IFA and because the Belfast teams were more popular generating more funds and larger crowds, Belfast and northern regions were given higher priority with more elected officials within the organisation being from the North of the island as well as even giving Belfast based players preference in regard to National team selection despite competition from teams in the south. This continued for a number of years and by 1920 there were only 2 clubs in the Irish league that were based outside of the Northern province of Ulster with the LFA ultimately deciding that the IFA was doing little to nothing to promote and fund the game outside of its own provincial heartland. This would tie in to the First World War as well as The Irish War of Independence and partition of the state which saw North and South split into two separate entities. The LFA would formally split from the IFA in June of 1921 with the new Irish Free State forming its own governing body. This new governing body would be admitted into FIFA in 1923 as the FAIFS (Football Association of the Irish Free State) and is today simply known as the FAI (Football Association of Ireland). The FAI is the current governing body of football in the Republic of Ireland while the IFA still acts as the governing body in Northern Ireland.
Emergence of League of Ireland and “Golden Age”
Upon the formation of the FAI a new league was created which would encompass the Irish Free state. (26 out of 32 counties on the island of Ireland). Immediately teams from the Leinster senior league found themselves involved with the new division simply known as the “A Division”. The inaugural league champions were St James Gate in 1922. Soon after forming teams from outside of Dublin would also begin to join the league with members from towns such as Cork, Athlone, Dundalk, Sligo and Limerick all joining over the first 15 years or so of the league’s existence. Titles were primarily won by either Shelbourne, Bohemians and Shamrock Rovers throughout the 1920s and 30s with teams from Cork becoming more dominant through the 40s with Cork United winning 5 titles between 1941-1946 and their immediate successor Cork Athletic executing a double winning back to back championships in 1950 & 1951.
The turn of the decade would see the league reach the height of its popularity which still has not been replicated. Attendances of over 10,000 were commonplace. Indeed it appears that during this time, attendances of over 20,000 were expected and commonplace at important league clashes or knockout cup games regardless of the team with spectator demand regularly being larger than the actual safe capacity of the stadium’s themselves. There are even reports of some crowds being up near 40,000 in number though it is difficult to determine exact amounts from newspaper match reports.
Decline from 60s onwards
However the golden era would not last forever and the beginning of the 1960s would see a dramatic decline in the attendances of Irish football. This would only continue as decades went by and if anything the fortunes of the domestic league would only worsen. Once hugely important and influential teams were folding or being forced to give up their place in the league due to financial issues. Perhaps the most notable example of this was Drumcondra who had been among the top teams in the country for decades. Financial difficulties would force them to abandon their League of Ireland status and revert back to amateur in 1972.
Cork has always been a hotbed for soccer along with almost every other sport in Ireland and teams from the Rebel County had won silverware consistently throughout the 1940s and 50s. Three different teams from Cork would fold in the years between 1976 and 1982, Cork Celtic, Cork Hibernians and Cork United respectively. Aside from clubs going into debt and losing their league status perhaps the most obvious sign of League degeneration occurring was when Shamrock Rovers were forced to sell their ground at Milltown to property developers in fear of meeting the same fate in 1987. Rovers for decades had been a pillar of Irish football and could almost be viewed as an Irish domestic alternative to Manchester United or Liverpool in terms of the sheer size and success of the club.
This trend was not broken heading into the 2000s with a number of clubs folding. The most high profile instance of such a thing happening in recent times would surely be the case of Sporting Fingal. Formed in 2008, Sporting Fingal was set to represent Dublin’s most northern region and in their short three year existence were promoted into the premier division, won the domestic cup and qualified for the UEFA Europa League twice, being unable to play the second time due to disbanding before the fixture.
So that is an extremely short and summarised history of how football began in Ireland and how the League has gone in the 100 years or so that it has been played. Clearly there are major issues afflicting the League of Ireland from around 1960 or so which have continued to affect the game all the way into the modern era. The next section of this article series aims to identify issues that the League faced during this time and hopefully provide an explanation as to why attendances could go from well over 20,000 in the 1950s to average attendances being between 1,000- 2,000 only 50 years later.
What caused the league to decline?
Rule 27
In attempting to examine possible reasons as to why the League of Ireland saw itself go into decline it is important to have a general understanding of the cultural landscape at the time. Ireland is a country with an extremely fragmented history. The history needs to be discussed at length and could cover hundreds of pages however I will attempt to paint an extremely broad, general picture to get across the gist of it.
Ireland’s population can be generally separated into two categories historically. There are the Catholics who are seen as nationalist and were primarily found in rural and southern areas of the country and the Protestants who typically supported a union with the United Kingdom and were primarily found in the Urban and north east of the island. Belfast in particular being a stronghold of unionism at one time. Catholics typically identified themselves as Irish while Protestants would prefer to be viewed as British. The reality of the situation is far more nuanced but that is an extremely brief summarisation.
The Gaelic Athletics Association (GAA) was an nationalist organisation that was formed in order to promote traditional Irish sports as well as supporting the Irish language. Quickly it found itself as the biggest sporting organisation in the country and to this day it remains so. Of course GAA presents an obstacle for soccer/football in being a direct competitor in terms of audience and participation but the divide between the two stretches even deeper. Brought in 1905, Rule 27 of the GAA actively prohibited players from participating in any ‘foreign sports’ and those who did would then be banned from the organisation. This did not just apply to GAA players at intercounty level but down to the most grassroots elements this rule was enforced. There was certainly a feeling among staunch Irish nationalists that football/soccer was a purely English sport and was seen as a sign of colonisation and anti Irishness.
This feeling would exist throughout Irish particularly in rural areas where GAA was most popular and oftentimes school children would be severely reprimanded and even beaten for participating in football, the ‘foreign sport’. Rule 27 would later be abolished in 1971 as it was deemed to be unrealistic to enforce, though the effects it had after nearly 70 years of being in place should not be understated, with many Irishmen of a particular generation even today viewing football as an almost taboo sport.
Support for English teams?
While Rule 27 and the staunch anti football policies of the GAA clearly would have had some impact on the state of domestic football in Ireland, clearly they did not completely rid the country of the game. Football remains one of the most popular sports in Ireland along with GAA and the sheer numbers of fans who attend Premier League matches and support Premier League teams are testament to this. As stated previously in this article series a survey conducted shows that well over 2 million Irish people claim to support a Premier League team with well over 100,000 Irish fans travelling to the United Kingdom every season to support their team, that number got as high as 175,000 in 2019. Clearly there is massive support and appreciation for football within Ireland, the real question is “why does all of this support get shown towards English teams?”
The reason for this likely lies in how connected the two countries are, Ireland and England have always had a close yet often strained and conflicting relationship with British media and culture almost always having at least some presence in Ireland also. Though what could cause the sharp decline from the 1950s onwards and why would more fans choose to support British teams than their Irish counterparts. A major argument is the adoption of television by Irish society. The 1960s was the decade where owning or renting a television became common throughout Ireland and with this came the exposure to much of British culture. While the national broadcaster RTE had a presence, many families and individuals preferred to watch the BBC or ITV as it was generally considered a higher quality product, even outside of football. Of course, this would also mean that English First Division games were now being broadcast live in the Republic of Ireland which added another competitor to the domestic league.
Another factor that must be noted is the gap in talent between the two divisions, despite the large attendances the league of Ireland was receiving, the country’s best players would still be scouted and signed by top English teams such as Manchester United, Liverpool, Everton and Leeds. This would further encourage Irish fans to watch their national heroes who were more than likely playing in the First Division. The English league was among the best in Europe at this point, with English teams regularly competing in European competitions at the highest levels, the same cannot be said for Irish teams even during the League of Ireland’s ‘golden era’.
All of these factors played a part in making the Irish population switch allegiances towards English teams over Irish. That switch would massively damage the state of the domestic game within Ireland. As the English teams became more and more supported the Irish teams would receive less and less attention, culminating in the financial difficulties which we discussed earlier. This of course would impact the football fans of Ireland today. How are teams chosen by children when picking who to support? There are typically two factors at play. Either who is most successful in the era the child is growing up in or what team has traditionally been supported in the family. The practice of parent’s passing on their chosen team to their children is as old as football itself and makes sense how the children of 1960s and 70s Ireland who were exposed to dominantly English teams would go on to ensure their own children supported these teams.
League of Ireland in 2024
However, not everything is necessarily doom and gloom when discussing the League of Ireland post 1950s. There in fact appears to be an upward trend in the last few years. A study conducted by BDO Ireland gives some really telling info on how the league has been faring over the last 5 years or so. 2023 saw massive increases in almost every single figure related to the League of Ireland with a 77% increase in attendance from 2023 compared to 2019. Clearly post pandemic, the League of Ireland has been thriving. TV viewership and revenue produced is also on a massive upward trend with the league in total generating just under 165 million euro to the Irish economy in 2023.
2024 hasn’t appeared to be any different with attendances and interest only heightened since last season, particularly with this season having the most exciting title race in recent memory with Damien Duff’s Shelbourne eventually emerging as deserved winners. In fact, as I am writing this article the FAI Cup final is set to be played tomorrow afternoon between Derry FC and Drogheda United. Many thought that this year’s cup final would pale in comparison to last year’s impressive crowd of 43,000 simply due to the fact that it was not two Dublin based teams in the final. This does not seem to have been the case however with latest figures revealing that 38,000 tickets have been sold for the match.
In answering why this has happened there are a multitude of possible reasons. The fact the resurgence of the league has taken place right after the Covid pandemic is surely not a coincidence and it is not unreasonable to assume that a serious appetite for live sport after lockdowns helped promote attendances for the league. What is also worth considering is that the current state of English football is tumultuous to say the least. With more and more money being involved in the Premier League and entire countries providing backing to some clubs there are many fans who have become disillusioned with the modern game and the amount of money that is now involved with it. For many people the League of Ireland represents a purer era of football where there was not the same level of foreign investors and businessmen involved in the running of clubs.
Whatever the reason, clearly the League of Ireland is experiencing some upward momentum for the first time since the 1950s. Long may it continue and hopefully the national team will soon start seeing the benefit of it also.
