The Ireland women's national basketball team represents Ireland in international

women's basketball Women's basketball is the team sport of basketball played by women. It was first played in 1892, one year after men's basketball, at Smith College in Massachusetts. It spread across the United States, in large parts via women's college compet ...

. The team is organised by Basketball Ireland, and play their home games at the

National Basketball Arena National Basketball Arena, also known as Tallaght Arena, is an indoor sporting arena located in Tymon Park, Tallaght, South Dublin, adjacent to the M50 motorway. The capacity of the arena is 2,500 people and it opened in January 1993. It is ...

Tallaght Tallaght ( ; , ) is a southwestern outer suburb of Dublin, Ireland. The central village area was the site of a monastic settlement from at least the 8th century, which became one of medieval Ireland's more important monastic centres. Up to th ...

. As of 2024, the team was ranked 80th in the

FIBA Women's World Ranking The FIBA Women's World Ranking is the FIBA's rankings of national women's basketball teams. FIBA ranks women's national teams in both senior and junior competitions. It also publishes combined rankings for all competitions involving both sexes. ...

History

A team representing Ireland participated in the 1980 FIBA World Olympic Qualifying Tournament for Women, but did not qualify. As of 1989, the Ireland women's team was contesting the European Promotion Cup for Women, and placed second in the competition. In February 2010, during the Irish financial crisis, Basketball Ireland announced that it was €1.2m in debt and would deactivate its senior international squads to cut costs. A team representing Ireland was reformed in 2013, when a "Premier League All Stars" team played Wales in a match to mark The Gathering Ireland 2013 festival. Ireland also competed in

3x3 basketball 3x3 basketball (stylized as ''ƐX3'', pronounced ''three-ex-three'') is a Variations of basketball, variation of basketball played three-a-side, with one Backboard (basketball), backboard and in a basketball court, half-court setup. This basketba ...

at the 2014 Europe Championships and the

2015 European Games The 1st European Games (), also known as the 2015 European Games or Baku 2015 (), were the inaugural edition of the European Games, an international multi-sport event for athletes representing the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) of the Europe ...

. In late 2015, it was announced that the national team would again join official

FIBA Europe FIBA Europe is the administrative body for basketball in Europe, within the FIBA, International Basketball Federation (FIBA), which includes all List of men's national basketball teams#FIBA Europe, 50 national European basketball federations. ...

competitions after accepting an invitation to play the 2016 FIBA Women's European Championship for Small Countries. The Irish team came second in the 2016 event, after losing to Malta in the final. An Irish team also entered the 2018 event (which took place in

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) and placed sixth. Before a FIBA Women's EuroBasket 2025 qualifier, held in February 2024, in response to "inflammatory and wholly inaccurate accusations of anti-Semitism .published on official Israeli asketballfederation channels", members of the team "boycotted the usual pre-match pleasantries" and did not shake hands with the Israeli team. A number of Irish team members also opted not to travel to the game, which had been postponed from November 2023 and moved to Riga in Latvia due to the

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. Ireland lost the game by 30 points.

Squad

As of 2024 (

EuroBasket Women 2025 The 2025 EuroBasket Women, Women's European Basketball Championship, commonly called EuroBasket Women 2025, is the 40th edition of the continental tournament in women's basketball, sanctioned by the FIBA Europe. It is held in Czechia, Germany, It ...

qualifiers), the squad included: * Sarah Hickey, WIT Wildcats * Kate Hickey, WIT Wildcats * Lauryn Homan, Brunell BC * Abigail Rafferty,

DeSales University DeSales University (DSU) is a Private university, private Catholic university in Center Valley, Pennsylvania, United States. The university offers traditional, online, and hybrid courses and programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels. N ...

* Bridget Herlihy, Porta XI Ensino (Spain) * Annaliese Murphy, Glanmire * Grace Prenter, Trinity Meteors * Kara McCleane,

University of Galway The University of Galway () is a public research university located in the city of Galway, Ireland. The university was founded in 1845 as "Queen's College, Galway". It was known as "University College, Galway" (UCG) () from 1908 to 1997 and as ...

* Sorcha Tiernan, Liffey Celtics * Alexandra Mulligan, Ulster University Tigers * Amy Dooley, Glanmire * Aine O'Connor, Liffey Celtics

References

External links

Official website

Ireland
at FIBA site
Ireland National Team – Women
at Eurobasket.com {{FIBA Europe women's teams Women's national basketball teams

History

Squad

See also

References

External links