Dublin Attractions

Croke Park Dublin

Situated in the wonderful city of Dublin in the Republic of Ireland, lies Croke Park, a sports stadium. It is very famous in Ireland, as it is the largest sports stadium and because of its large size, hosts the very traditional Gaelic games.

Each year the All Ireland Senior Football Championship and Senior Hurling Championship finals are held here, very significant dates in Irelands sports calendar.

Once called the Jones Road sports ground and also quite often referred to as the City and Suburban Racecourse, the land was owned by Maurice Butterfly.

This land has been used for sports, in particular the Gaelic games and Athletics, since as early as 1884 and was originally the place where Bohemians F.C. played. The sports ground became more significant when the All Irelands games were played there in 1896 and this made it the favourite home ground for the GAA events to be held.

In 1908, Frank Dineen bought the ground for £3,250 only to sell it a few years later for a profit of £250 pounds to the Gaelic Athletic Association ( GAA). The ground was renamed as Croke Park(Pairc an Chrocaigh in Irish), after one of the GAA`s patrons, Archbishop Thomas Croke.

Croker, as it is affectionatelly called, had two original stands surrounded by grassy banks as spectators of Gaelic sports like to be close to the field of play and Gaelic sports are played on a larger than usual playing field.

During Ireland`s torrid history of uprisings the ground saw various changes. The first of which was after the Easter Risings of 1916, from which a grassy hill was built from the resulting rubble and this was known as Hill 16.

Then a few years later the ground was the scene of one of the most tragic and memorable massacres of the Irish War of Independence as Michael Hogan, the captain of Tipperary`s Gaelic football team, along with 13 spectators were moored down and killed by British army auxiliaries.

This was in retaliation for the slaying of 14 British Intelligence officers by the Michael Collins squad, known as the Cairo Gang, earlier that day. This day was to become one of the worst days Ireland witnessed for killings and was named Bloody Sunday.

A stand known as the Hogan Stand was built to commemorate this great captain of Tipperary. Stands named after founding members the GAA, such as the Cusack Stand, the Nally Stand and the Davin Stand have since been constructed, then renovated and modernised years later.

The ground had a complete modernisation programme in the 1995 and today Croker Park can hold a capacity of approximately 82 thousand people.

After many years of opposition due to Gaelic rules, finally the stadium could be used to host other important sporting occasions such as Football (Soccer) matches and Rugby matches and now even rock concerts have been held in this magnificent stadium.