Lansdowne Road Stadium ( ga, Bóthar Lansdún, ) was a stadium in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

owned by the

Irish Rugby Football Union The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) ( ga, Cumann Rugbaí na hÉireann) is the body managing rugby union in the island of Ireland (both Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland). The IRFU has its head office at 10/12 Lansdowne Road and home ...

(IRFU) that was 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 ...

and

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

matches. The stadium was demolished in 2007 to make way for the Aviva Stadium on the same site, which opened in 2010. The stadium took its name from the adjacent street, Lansdowne Road.

Location

The stadium was situated in the neighbourhood of

Ballsbridge Ballsbridge () (from historic Ball's Bridge) is an affluent neighbourhood of the city of Dublin, the capital of Ireland. The area is largely north and west of a three-arch stone bridge across the River Dodder, on the south side of the city. Th ...

in the city's Dublin 4 area. The stadium had convenient public transport links as the Lansdowne Road station of the

Dublin Area Rapid Transit The Dublin Area Rapid Transit system (stylised as DART) is an electrified commuter rail railway network serving the coastline and city of Dublin, Ireland. The service makes up the core of Dublin's suburban railway network, stretching from Gre ...

rail system is adjacent to the site and passed directly underneath the West Stand. The stadium was named after the nearby road, which in turn was named after William Petty-FitzMaurice, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne. The Marquis was also the Earl of Shelburne, and nearby Shelbourne Road is also named after him.

Uses

The stadium had a total capacity of 49,250, with 25,000 seats. However, competitive international football matches could not use the entire capacity because the stands at both ends of the ground (North and South) were standing-only terraces.

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' (French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

and

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs fo ...

both mandate that international matches be played in all-seated venues. A temporary capacity of 36,000 was the result for competitive soccer. World Rugby, known as the International Rugby Board when the current Aviva Stadium opened, does not impose this restriction on international rugby venues. For non-competitive international football matches (

friendly match An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, a scrimmage, a demonstration, a preseason game, a warmup match, or a preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sporting event whose prize money and impact on the player's or ...

es), the FIFA/UEFA all-seated mandate does not apply. At the IRFU ground, Irish rugby and football international matches were played.

Leinster Leinster ( ; ga, Laighin or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, situated in the southeast and east of Ireland. The province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige. Following the 12th-century Norman invasion of ...

also used the ground on a number of occasions when crowd size meant their traditional home of Donnybrook was not large enough. In 1999 and 2003, Lansdowne Road played host to the

Heineken Cup The European Rugby Champions Cup (known as the Heineken Champions Cup for sponsorship reasons) is an annual rugby union tournament organised by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). It is the top-tier competition for clubs who compete in a pre ...

final. Since 1990, Lansdowne was also a regular host of the FAI Cup Final. The stadium had also hosted huge concerts from artists such as

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the " King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over ...

Robbie Williams Robert Peter Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, and achieved commercial success after launching a solo career in 1996. His debut stud ...

Oasis In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.” The location of oases has been of critical imp ...

, U2,

The Corrs The Corrs are an Irish family band that combine pop rock with traditional Irish themes within their music. The group consists of the Corr siblings, Andrea (lead vocals, tin whistle, mandolin, ukulele), Sharon (violin, keyboards, vocals), Carol ...

Westlife Westlife is an Irish pop vocal group formed in Dublin, Ireland in 1998. The group currently consists of members Shane Filan, Mark Feehily, Kian Egan, and Nicky Byrne. Brian McFadden was a member, until he left in 2004. The group temporar ...

and others.

History

The Lansdowne Road Stadium was the brainchild of Henry Dunlop, the organiser of the first All Ireland

Athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competi ...

Championships. Dunlop, a decorated track walker and engineering graduate of

Trinity College, Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

, founded the Irish Champion Athletic Club in 1871. After an initial meeting at Trinity College, the Provost of the College banned any further meetings on campus. Dunlop had to find a new home for his sporting endeavours. Dunlop founded Lansdowne Football Club in 1872 and that club has played rugby union ever since at the grounds, being one of the most prominent and successful rugby clubs in

and Ireland.

Wanderers Football Club The Wanderers Football Club, nicknamed, Eagles, is an Australian rules football club, currently playing in the Northern Territory Football League (NTFL). The club was formed in 1916 as a founding member of the NTFL. It has produced Australian ...

, founded in 1869, joined Lansdowne at the grounds later. The two clubs were tenants since that time and also use the new Aviva Stadium. Some 300 cartloads of soil from a trench beneath the railway were used to raise the ground, allowing Dunlop to utilise his engineering expertise to create a pitch envied around Ireland. Rugby gradually became the main use of the grounds: the first representative rugby match was an interprovincial fixture between

and

Ulster Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...

in December 1876, and on 11 March 1878, Lansdowne Road hosted its first international rugby fixture, against England, making it the world's oldest

Test venue. Dunlop charged the IRFU £5 and half of any profits over £50 after expenses. The first victory Ireland had at the ground took place on 5 February 1887, against England. Around this time, the treasurer of the IRFU, Harry Sheppard, acquired the lease from Dunlop and when Sheppard died in 1906, the union paid his estate £200 for the lease. The IRFU built the first covered stand in 1908, alongside the railway. An uncovered stand was built over the Lansdowne club pavilion at the northwest corner of the ground. The first international soccer match at the venue took place between

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

Saint Patrick's Day Saint Patrick's Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick ( ga, Lá Fhéile Pádraig, lit=the Day of the Festival of Patrick), is a cultural and religious celebration held on 17 March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (), the foremost patr ...

, 17 March 1900, when the Belfast-based

Irish Football Association The Irish Football Association (IFA) is the governing body for association football in Northern Ireland. It organised the Ireland national football team from 1880 to 1950, which after 1954, became the Northern Ireland national football team. ...

controlled that game throughout the island. England won by 2–0. In 1926, the

Irish Free State The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between ...

played an international game against

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

at Lansdowne Road and this was to be the last soccer game at the stadium until Waterford United played

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...

in a

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

tie in September 1968. The day after the United Kingdom declared war in August 1914, 350 rugby players, of middle-class and professional backgrounds with solicitors and barristers and many working in banks and insurance companies, assembled on the ground. They were addressed by FH Browning, the President of the IRFU, and they decided to volunteer to join the 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers as a "pals" company, D Company. They marched from the grounds through the city on their way to the Curragh Camp. Some were shortly commissioned as officers, others became NCOs and many of the others became specialists in the battalion, such as signallers, machine-gunners and medical orderlies. This unit saw action at

Suvla Bay View of Suvla from Battleship Hill Suvla () is a bay on the Aegean coast of the Gallipoli peninsula in European Turkey, south of the Gulf of Saros. On 6 August 1915, it was the site for the Landing at Suvla Bay by the British IX Corps as par ...

in the Dardanelles on 7 August 1915, when many of them fell. A memorial to the IRFU members who died in the Great War was erected on the inside of the external wall of the stadium after the war. It was to be preserved in any rebuilding by condition of the planning permission, and is now located just outside the new Aviva Stadium media centre. After the First World War, the members of Lansdowne and Wanderers reclaimed land from the nearby River Dodder and created enough ground for two back pitches to be formed, enabling the main pitch to be turned out around to the configuration used ever since. In 1927, the old East Stand was built and a terrace created under it. Soldiers of the National Army filled the stand to test its strength. Unfortunately, the roof of the stand was not erected in time for the first match against Scotland. The day of the match saw torrential rain, soaking the spectators and the day was long remembered for the appalling conditions. The Irish poet

Louis MacNeice Frederick Louis MacNeice (12 September 1907 – 3 September 1963) was an Irish poet and playwright, and a member of the Auden Group, which also included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis. MacNeice's body of work was widely ...

evokes the atmosphere at Lansdowne Park in the late 1930s in

Rugby Football Excursion ''Rugby Football Excursion'' is a 44-line poem by Louis MacNeice. It was written in 1938 and first published in book form in MacNeice's poetry collection The Earth Compels (1938). The poem recounts an excursion taken by MacNeice from London to Dub ...

, a poem first published in 1938. MacNeice does not specify the actual occasion, but the details provided in the sixth

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have ei ...

of the poem - "Eccentric scoring - Nicholson, Marshall and Unwin, / Replies by Bailey and Daly" - suggest that MacNeice was at Lansdowne Park on 12 February 1938 for a match between Ireland and England in the

1938 Home Nations Championship The 1938 Home Nations Championship was the thirty-fourth series of the rugby union Home Nations Championship. Including the previous incarnations as the Five Nations, and prior to that, the Home Nations, this was the fifty-first series of the no ...

Pathé News Pathé News was a producer of newsreels and documentaries from 1910 to 1970 in the United Kingdom. Its founder, Charles Pathé, was a pioneer of moving pictures in the silent era. The Pathé News archive is known today as British Pathé. Its col ...

made a newsreel of this match. The newsreel shows the English and Irish teams running onto the pitch, watched by a huge crowd, followed by various shots of the match in progress. Lansdowne Lawn Tennis Club was a tenant at the grounds and had grass tennis courts where the South Terrace was later located. During international rugby matches, the tennis courts were covered with planks of wood to allow spectators to stand and watch the rugby matches. In 1930, Lansdowne LTC left the ground to move across the Dodder river to Londonbridge Road, taking the turf from the tennis courts with them. The IRFU, which had its offices within the stadium complex, allowed occasional other uses of the ground, including athletics (a crowd of 40,000 witnessed Olympic gold medalist

Ronnie Delany Ronald Michael Delany (born 6 March 1935) is an Irish former athlete who specialised in middle-distance running. He won a gold medal in the 1500 metres event at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. He later earned a bronze medal in the 1500 m ...

run there in an international athletics meeting in the 1950s). In 1952 Lansdowne Road hosted the first colours match between

University College Dublin University College Dublin (commonly referred to as UCD) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile, Baile Átha Cliath) is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 33,284 student ...

and

. UCD took the honours. In 1954, the arrangement whereby Ireland matches were shared between

Ravenhill Stadium Ravenhill Stadium (known as the Kingspan Stadium for sponsorship reasons) is a rugby stadium located in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is the home of Ulster Rugby. With the opening of a new stand for the 2014 Heineken Cup quarter-final against ...

and Lansdowne Road ended with the building of the Upper West Stand at Lansdowne creating 8,000 additional seats. In future, all Ireland internationals were to be played at Lansdowne Road. In September 1968 the first football match was played at IRFU headquarters as

Waterford "Waterford remains the untaken city" , mapsize = 220px , pushpin_map = Ireland#Europe , pushpin_map_caption = Location within Ireland##Location within Europe , pushpin_relief = 1 , coordinates ...

played

in the

1968–69 European Cup The 1968–69 season of the European Cup football club tournament was won by Milan, who beat Ajax 4–1 in the final, giving Milan its first European Cup title since 1963, and its second overall. A number of Eastern Bloc clubs withdrew from th ...

In 1977, the old West Lower Stand was demolished and the new West Lower Stand opened in 1978. The uncovered stand at the corner of the North Terrace was demolished and terracing extended. Lansdowne FC moved their clubhouse from under that stand to a new clubhouse within the grounds, near Herbert Bridge, beside the Dodder. The mock-Tudor tearooms of Lansdowne FC reverted to the IRFU. The East Stand replaced the Old East Stand in 1983, being financed by the sale of ten-year tickets. In October 2005, a small fire in the north terrace put the terrace out of commission for all of Ireland's Autumn internationals. This meant that people who had travelled from as far away as Australia and New Zealand could not attend the match. The terrace reopened for the first game of the 2006

Six Nations Championship The Six Nations Championship (known as the Guinness Six Nations for sponsorship reasons) is an annual international men's rugby union competition between the teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. The current champions ar ...

. On 20 November 1988,

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classified ...

beat

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

38–24 in the Emerald Isle Classic, the first major

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

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 ...

game ever played in Europe, played before 42,525 fans at the stadium. The Irish Government estimated at the time that the game brought nearly US$30 million in spending to the local economy. The Football Association of Ireland first leased the ground for international

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

matches in 1971, and from 1990 to 2006, the ground was used for the vast majority of home fixtures by the Republic of Ireland soccer team. The reason for this was that

Dalymount Park Dalymount Park (Irish: ''Páirc Cnocán Uí Dhálaigh'') is a football stadium in Phibsborough on the Northside of Dublin, Ireland. It is the home of Bohemian F.C., who have played there since the early 20th century. Affectionately known ...

, the traditional home of Irish soccer was no longer considered an adequate venue for hosting internationals due to its lower capacity and fewer seats. It was primarily to allow midweek international soccer matches to take place in the evening that floodlights were installed in Lansdowne in 1993. On 15 February 1995, following the 1994 IRA ceasefire, English football hooligans caused the referee to abandon the game after just 27 minutes. Orchestrated by Combat 18, a

neo-nazi Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and racial supremacy (often white supremacy), attack ...

organisation and members of the hooligan group

Chelsea Headhunters The Chelsea Headhunters are a notorious English football hooligan firm linked to the London football club Chelsea. Background There is widespread racism amongst the gang and links to various white supremacist organisations, such as Combat 18 ...

. English spectators threw debris (including seats, wood and metal) down at Irish fans in response to a goal being scored by Ireland's David Kelly. In 2004, Shelbourne made it to the final qualifying round of the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...

and played

La Liga The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known simply as Primera División in Spain, and as La Liga in English-speaking countries and officially as LaLiga Banco Santander, Santander for sponsorship reasons, stylized as LaL ...

side Deportivo La Coruña at Lansdowne Road in front of 25,000. The match finished 0:0, and following defeat in Spain in the second leg, Shels would host their

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, clay ...

first round tie against

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the No ...

at Lansdowne as well. That match finished 2:2. The last international rugby match before demolition was a 61–17 Ireland win over the

Pacific Islanders Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. As an ethnic/ racial term, it is used to describe the original peoples—inhabitants and diasporas—of any of the three major subregions of Oce ...

on 26 November 2006. The final football international was a 5–0 win for the Republic of Ireland over

San Marino San Marino (, ), officially the Republic of San Marino ( it, Repubblica di San Marino; ), also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino ( it, Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino, links=no), is the fifth-smallest country in the world an ...

on 15 November 2006. The last football game ever before redevelopment was Derry City's FAI Cup Final win against

St. Patrick's Athletic St Patrick's Athletic Football Club ( ga, Cumann Peile Lúthchleas Phádraig Naofa) is a professional Irish association football club based in Inchicore, Dublin, that plays in the Irish Premier Division. Founded in May 1929, they played origin ...

on 3 December 2006. The last contest in the old Lansdowne Road Stadium was a rugby match that took place on 31 December 2006.

beat

20 points to 12 in a Celtic League game that set a record attendance of 48,000 for such a league match. Demolition of the stadium began in May 2007.

Replacement

The stadium was replaced by a 50,000 all-seater football and rugby stadium that opened in May 2010. The development of the new stadium was finally announced in January 2004 at a cost of approximately €365 million; of this, €190 million came from the Irish government, with the remainder paid by the IRFU and Football Association of Ireland. The new stadium was designed by Populous, Scott Tallon Walker and

Buro Happold Buro Happold (previously ''BuroHappold Engineering'') is a British professional services firm that provides engineering consultancy, design, planning, project management, and consulting services for buildings, infrastructure, and the environment ...

, with ME Engineers providing the building services design. The development was originally meant to begin in January 2007. but was delayed. DSM Demolition commenced the works on 17 May 2007. Football and rugby internationals were mainly played at

Croke Park Croke Park ( ga, Páirc an Chrócaigh, ) is a Gaelic games stadium in Dublin, Ireland. Named after Archbishop Thomas Croke, it is referred to as Croker by GAA fans and locals. It serves as both the principal national stadium of Ireland and h ...

while the Aviva Stadium was being developed, with fixtures in both sports also taking place at Thomond Park, and RDS Arena with

also hosting a rugby international. Croke Park is owned by the

Gaelic Athletic Association The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA; ga, Cumann Lúthchleas Gael ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional ...

, whose previous rules did not allow foreign sports to be played on their grounds. In September 2006, Lars-Christer Olsson, CEO of

, hinted that the new stadium might stage the

Final in 2010. The 2010 final was ultimately awarded to

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

, but in January 2009, UEFA named the new ground as the host stadium for the renamed 2011 Europa League Final. In February 2009, a sponsorship deal, reported to be in the region of €44 million for 10 years, was struck under which the new stadium would be known as Aviva Stadium, which opened on 7 August 2010.

In popular culture

The writer Gerard Siggins co-authored the history of the stadium, Lansdowne Road: The Stadium, The Matches, The Greatest Days (O'Brien Press, 2010) with journalist Malachy Clerkin.

References

External links

Irish Rugby Football Union (Owner)Lansdowne Road Stadium Development CompanyLansdowne Road Redevelopment
{{Streets in Dublin city, state=autocollapse Rugby World Cup stadiums Ballsbridge Buildings and structures demolished in 2007 Ireland national football team (1882–1950) Republic of Ireland national football team home stadiums Ireland national rugby union team Leinster Rugby Defunct association football venues in the Republic of Ireland Lansdowne Football Club Wanderers F.C. (rugby union) Sports venues in Dublin (city) Sports venues completed in 1872 2007 disestablishments in Ireland Association football venues in County Dublin 1872 establishments in Ireland American football venues in the Republic of Ireland Streets in Dublin (city)