Croke Park: the cathedral of Gaelic games in Dublin
Croke Park on the north side of Dublin is the headquarters and principal stadium of the Gaelic Athletic Association, the largest sporting organisation in Ireland. With a capacity of 82,300 it is the third-largest stadium in Europe and one of the most significant arenas anywhere in the world that is dedicated principally to amateur sport. For most of the year it stages the All-Ireland Senior Football and Hurling Championships, the twin pinnacles of Gaelic games, but it has also crossed into the wider sporting and cultural life of Ireland in ways that few grounds have. The stadium appears on the map.
Origins and the name
The land at Jones's Road was used for sporting events from the 1880s and was purchased by the GAA in 1913. It was named in honour of Archbishop Thomas Croke of Cashel, one of the association's first patrons. From modest beginnings the ground was gradually developed across the twentieth century, with the Cusack Stand, the Hogan Stand, the Nally Stand and the terraced Hill 16 each carrying their own history and identity in the minds of Irish supporters.
Bloody Sunday, 1920
Croke Park is inseparable from one of the darkest days of the Irish War of Independence. On 21 November 1920, during a Dublin–Tipperary football match, British forces opened fire on the crowd in reprisal for IRA assassinations carried out earlier that morning. Fourteen people were killed, among them the Tipperary player Michael Hogan, after whom the Hogan Stand is named. The events of Bloody Sunday gave Croke Park a place in the national memory that goes far beyond sport, and the centenary in 2020 was marked with solemn commemorations.
The modern redevelopment
The Croke Park visible today is the product of a vast reconstruction carried out in stages between 1991 and 2005, one of the largest stadium projects undertaken in Europe in that period. The new Cusack Stand, Hogan Stand and Davin Stand created a continuous three-tier bowl, while Hill 16 was retained as a terrace, preserving the standing tradition at the Railway End. The completed stadium reached its 82,300 capacity and set a new standard for design and spectator facilities in Irish sport, all financed largely from within the GAA and the proceeds of its games.
All-Ireland finals
The stadium's defining occasions are the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Final in July and the All-Ireland Senior Football Final in late summer, when counties from across Ireland compete for the Liam MacCarthy Cup and the Sam Maguire Cup respectively. These are among the best-attended amateur sporting events in the world, regularly filling the stadium and drawing enormous television audiences across the island and the diaspora. The atmosphere, built around county loyalties and parish identities rather than professional clubs, is unlike that of any commercial sport.
Rule 42 and the opening to other sports
For most of its history the GAA's Rule 42 banned the playing of "foreign games" — principally association football and rugby — at its grounds. In 2007, while the Lansdowne Road stadium was being rebuilt as the Aviva Stadium, the GAA temporarily relaxed the rule and allowed the Ireland football and rugby teams to use Croke Park. The decision was historic and at times controversial, given the memory of Bloody Sunday, and it produced one of the most emotional days in Irish sport when England visited for a Six Nations rugby match and "God Save the Queen" was played at the venue without incident.
Concerts and other events
Croke Park has long supplemented its sporting calendar with major concerts, hosting U2, who are Dublin's own, along with global touring acts on the scale of Garth Brooks, Ed Sheeran and Coldplay. As one of the largest outdoor venues in Ireland, it is a natural choice for stadium tours, although the number of concert dates each year is restricted by agreement with local residents in the surrounding Drumcondra and Ballybough neighbourhoods.
Visiting the stadium
The GAA Museum at Croke Park tells the story of Gaelic games and the association's role in Irish life, and the stadium tour includes access to the stands, the dressing rooms and the pitchside. The Etihad Skyline tour takes visitors onto a walkway around the roof, 17 storeys above the pitch, with panoramic views across Dublin to the mountains and the sea. For anyone seeking to understand the relationship between sport and national identity in Ireland, Croke Park is essential.
Explore on the map
Croke Park is one of many landmark grounds you can locate on our interactive map, alongside the great stadiums of Ireland and the wider world. Use it to plan a visit or simply to explore the geography of the game.