Lansdowne Road Stadium (, ) was a stadium in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

owned by the

Irish Rugby Football Union The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) () 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 ground at Aviva Stadium, where a ...

(IRFU) that was primarily used for

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

and

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

matches. The stadium was demolished in 2007 to make way for the

Aviva Stadium Aviva Stadium, also known as Lansdowne Road (, ) or Dublin Arena (during UEFA competitions), is a List of stadiums in Ireland by capacity, sports stadium located in Dublin, Republic of Ireland, Ireland, with a capacity for 51,711 spectators ...

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 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 The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

and

UEFA The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; ; ) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach soccer, beach football in Europe and the List of transcontinental countries#A ...

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 World Rugby is the governing body for the sport of rugby union. World Rugby organises the Rugby World Cup every four years, the sport's most recognised and most profitable competition. It also organises a number of other international competit ...

, 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, scrimmage, demonstration, training match, pre-season game, warmup match, or preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sport, sporting event whose prize money and impact on th ...

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

Leinster Leinster ( ; or ) is one of the four provinces of Ireland, in the southeast of Ireland. The modern province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige, which existed during Gaelic Ireland. Following the 12th-century ...

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 Investec 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 Cultural impact of Michael Jackson, one of the most culturally significan ...

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, launching a solo career in 1996. His debut studio album, ''Life thru a Lens'', was re ...

Oasis In ecology, an oasis (; : oases ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environmentU2, The Corrs,

Westlife Westlife are an Irish pop group formed in Dublin in 1998. The group consists of members Nicky Byrne, Shane Filan, Kian Egan and Mark Feehily. Brian McFadden was a member before leaving in March 2004. The group disbanded in 2012 and later reun ...

and others.

History

The Lansdowne Road Stadium was the brainchild of

Henry Dunlop Henry Wallace Doveton Dunlop (1844 – 1930) was a sports promoter, civil servant, engineer and, a former leader of Irish Rugby, founder of Lansdowne Football Club and figure behind the construction of the former Lansdowne Road stadium. A ch ...

, the organiser of the first All Ireland Athletics Championships. Dunlop, a decorated track walker and engineering graduate of

Trinity College, Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Univ ...

, 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 Lansdowne Football Club, is a rugby union team based in Dublin, Ireland. Called Football Club instead of Rugby Football Club due to being founded before the formation of the IRFU. It was founded in 1872 by Henry Dunlop as the ''Irish Champion Ath ...

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, 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 (; or ; or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional or historic provinces of Ireland, Irish provinces. It is made up of nine Counties of Ireland, counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kingdom); t ...

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 (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

and

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

Saint Patrick's Day Saint Patrick's Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick (), is a religious and cultural holiday held on 17 March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (), the foremost patron saint of Ireland. Saint Patrick's Day was made an official Chris ...

, 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 (1882–1950), Ireland national football team from 1880 to 1950, which after 1954, became t ...

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

Irish Free State The Irish Free State (6 December 192229 December 1937), also known by its Irish-language, Irish name ( , ), was a State (polity), state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-ye ...

played an international game against

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

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

Manchester United Manchester United Football Club, commonly referred to as Man United (often stylised as Man Utd) or simply United, is a professional association football, football club based in Old Trafford (area), Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, Engl ...

in a

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by top-division European clubs. The competition begins with a round robi ...

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 ...

in the

Dardanelles The Dardanelles ( ; ; ), also known as the Strait of Gallipoli (after the Gallipoli peninsula) and in classical antiquity as the Hellespont ( ; ), is a narrow, natural strait and internationally significant waterway in northwestern Turkey th ...

on 7 August 1915, when many of them died. 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 The River Dodder () is one of the three main rivers in Dublin, Ireland, the others being the River Liffey, Liffey, of which the Dodder is the largest tributary, and the River Tolka, Tolka. Course and system The Dodder rises on the northern s ...

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 evokes the atmosphere at Lansdowne Park in the late 1930s in Rugby Football Excursion, 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'', ; ) 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 either. ...

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 Six Nations Championship, Home Nations Championship. Including the previous incarnations as the Five Nations, and prior to that, the Home Nations, this was the fi ...

. Pathé News made a

newsreel A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news, news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a Movie theater, cinema, newsreels were a source of cu ...

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 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, is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a collegiate university, member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 38,417 students, it is Ireland's largest ...

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 until June 2025) 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 ...

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 ( ) is a City status in Ireland, city in County Waterford in the South-East Region, Ireland, south-east of Ireland. It is located within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster. The city is situated at the head of Waterford H ...

played

in the

1968–69 European Cup The 1968–69 season of the European Cup football club tournament was won by AC 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 t ...

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 Six Nations, branded as Guinness M6N) is an annual international rugby union competition by the teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. It is the oldest sports tournament conte ...

. On 20 November 1988,

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private university, private Catholic Jesuits, Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1863 by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic Religious order (Catholic), religious order, t ...

beat

Army An army, ground force or land force is an armed force that fights primarily on land. In the broadest sense, it is the land-based military branch, service branch or armed service of a nation or country. It may also include aviation assets by ...

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

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

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 The Football Association of Ireland (FAI; ) is the governing body for association football in the Republic of Ireland. Organisation The FAI has an executive committee of five members under the president, who receive expenses, as well as a p ...

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 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

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 language, Irish: ''Páirc Chnocán Uí Dhálaigh'') is a Association football, football stadium in Phibsborough on the Northside Dublin, Northside of Dublin, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is the home of Bohemian F.C., ...

, 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 a friendly international 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 Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...

organisation and members of the hooligan group Chelsea Headhunters. 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 (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

and played

La Liga The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known as the Primera División or La Liga, and officially known as LaLiga EA Sports for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Spain and the highest ...

side

Deportivo La Coruña ''Deportivo'' (Spanish, 'sporting') may refer to: * Deportivo de La Coruña, commonly known as simply Deportivo, a Spanish football club * Déportivo, a French rock band * Deportivo (Mexicable) Mexicable is an aerial lift line in Ecatepec de ...

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 The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

first round tie against

Lille Lille (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city in the northern part of France, within French Flanders. Positioned along the Deûle river, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Prefectures in F ...

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 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, is a landlocked country in Southern Europe, completely surrounded by Italy. Located on the northeastern slopes of the Apennine Mountains, it is the larger of two European microstates, microsta ...

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

. The new stadium was designed by Populous, Scott Tallon Walker and Buro Happold, 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 (, ) 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 headquarters of the Gaelic At ...

while the

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; ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sports, amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional Irish sports o ...

, 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 (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

, 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 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) Demolished buildings and structures in Dublin William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne