Donnybrook Stadium, known for sponsorship reasons as Energia Park, is a
rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...
stadium in
Donnybrook,
Dublin 4
Dublin 4, also rendered as D4 and D04, is a historic postal district of Dublin, Ireland including Baggot Street Upper, the southernmost fringes of the Dublin Docklands, and the suburbs of Ballsbridge, Donnybrook, Irishtown, Merrion, Ringsend ...
,
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
. The stadium has a capacity of 6,000,
including a 2,500 seat covered grandstand which was completed in early 2008.
History
The stadium, also sometimes known as Donnybrook Rugby Ground, is located on the former fair green used for the
Donnybrook Fair
Donnybrook Fair was a fair that was held in Donnybrook, Dublin, from the 13th century until the 1850s. It has given its name to an Irish jig, a chain of food stores, a broadsheet ballad, and is a slang term for a brawl or riot.
History
In the ...
until the mid-1850s. Used for games by
Bective Rangers
Bective Rangers Football Club is a rugby union club in Dublin, Ireland founded in 1881.
The Club is affiliated to the Leinster Branch of the Irish Rugby Football Union and play in Division 1A of the Leinster League.
The club plays its games a ...
and
Old Wesley
Old Wesley Rugby Football Club was founded in 1891 from the past pupils of Wesley College, Dublin. Since then it has become one of Leinster's most famous clubs. It plays in Division 1B of the All-Ireland League. The club won the Leinster Seni ...
since at least the early 20th century, the ground was also the home stadium of
Leinster Rugby - until they moved competitive games to the nearby
RDS Arena
RDS Arena is a multi-purpose sports stadium, owned by the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) and located in the Dublin suburb of Ballsbridge, Ireland.
The arena was developed to host equestrian events, primarily the annual Dublin Horse Show, which was ...
in 2007.
In March 2018
Energia began a sponsorship deal, to rename the stadium as Energia Park for 10 years.
Rugby union
Primarily used for
rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...
,
Old Wesley
Old Wesley Rugby Football Club was founded in 1891 from the past pupils of Wesley College, Dublin. Since then it has become one of Leinster's most famous clubs. It plays in Division 1B of the All-Ireland League. The club won the Leinster Seni ...
and
Bective Rangers
Bective Rangers Football Club is a rugby union club in Dublin, Ireland founded in 1881.
The Club is affiliated to the Leinster Branch of the Irish Rugby Football Union and play in Division 1A of the Leinster League.
The club plays its games a ...
are two local clubs who play their home games in Donnybrook.
Leinster Rugby also still play some friendly games in Donnybrook, with
Ireland A,
Ireland Women's Team and Leinster underage sides playing home games in the stadium. Between 2015 and 2018, it hosted the
Ireland under-20s home matches in the
Six Nations Under 20s Championship.
Since 2016, it has hosted the
Ireland women's team's home matches in the
Women's Six Nations Championship
The Women's Six Nations Championship, known as the TikTok Women's Six Nations for sponsorship purposes, is an international rugby union competition contested between six European women's national teams. It started in the 1995–96 season as the ...
.
The stadium is also the principal venue for competitions organised by the Leinster Branch and competitions at all levels from under 13 to junior and senior adult level are played at the ground. This includes games in the
Leinster Schools Senior and
Junior Cups, and it hosts several games in each competition each year.
Other uses
In August 2012 the stadium played host to two US high school
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...
teams,
Jesuit Dallas
Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas (commonly referred to as Jesuit Dallas or Dallas Jesuit, and formerly known as Jesuit High School) is a private, college-preparatory school for young men under the direction of the Society of Jesus a ...
and
Loyola Academy of
Wilmette, Illinois
Wilmette is a village in New Trier Township, Cook County, Illinois, United States. Bordering Lake Michigan and Evanston, Illinois, it is located north of Chicago's downtown district. Wilmette had a population of 27,087 at the 2010 census. The ...
. Jesuit defeated Loyola 30–29 with a last minute game-winning field goal.
The stadium has also hosted music events. For example, it hosted a
Michael Bublé
Michael Steven Bublé ( ; born September 9, 1975) is a Canadian singer. A four-time Grammy Award winner, he is often credited for helping to renew public interest and appreciation for traditional pop standards and the Great American Songboo ...
concert in July 2008, and gigs headlined by
The National and
Future Islands
Future Islands is an American synth-pop band based in Baltimore, Maryland, comprising Gerrit Welmers (keyboards and programming), William Cashion (bass, acoustic and electric guitars), Samuel T. Herring (lyrics and vocals), and Michael Lowry (p ...
in June 2018.
Gallery
File:Donnybrook Stadium - geograph-400316.jpg, Grandstand prior to renovation
File:Donnybrook Stadium - 2 - geograph-400324.jpg, View from behind the posts
File:Donnybrook Stadium aerial view.jpg, Aerial view post renovation
References
Leinster Rugby
Rugby union stadiums in Ireland
Donnybrook, Dublin
Bective Rangers
Old Wesley
Sports venues in Dublin (city)
American football venues in the Republic of Ireland
1964 establishments in Ireland
Sports venues completed in 1964
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