Why Croke Park is More Than a Sports Stadium: War, Culture and a New Era

It's the 24th Februray 2007, 1740 GMT. A typically cool and wet Spring evening in Dublin, Ireland.

Throughout Limerick, Galway, Waterford, Dublin, Belfast, Derry, the streets are empty. Cars on the country's roads are few and far between.

You see, why the weather may be typical of Ireland, the Rugby Union match that is about to get underway is not. It is Ireland versus England at Croke Park, home of the gael.

It seems that every man, woman and child has their eyes on the match, either at the ground or watching television coverage.

While Croke Park is part and parcel of what it is to be Irish, for over a century it lay hidden from the world.

Situated on Jones Road on Dublin's Northside (and typically Dublin's poorer side), Croke Park became the home of Gaelic Games in 1884, although at the time it was still holding soccer club Bohemians F.C's home games.

In 1908, GAA member Frank Dineen bought exclusive ownership of the ground for £3,250 and then sold it to the GAA in 1913 for a £250 profit. It was at this stage the ground became known as Croke Park, in honour of Archbishop Croke, a founding patron of the GAA.

The GAA was formed on the 1st November 1884 in Thurles, Tipperary, under the name The Gaelic Athletic Association for the Preservation and Cultivation of National Pastimes. Its aims and objectives were clear: revise and promote traditional Irish games that underlie the nation's culture while attempting to marginalise and eradicate so-called "foreign" games, particularly those that had originated in Britain.

Over the coming years the GAA gained more and more support from the Irish people who opposed the rule of Britain. Croke Park became a central symbol of the GAA and its followers.

In order to cope with demand, the GAA decided to develop the ground in 1917. Typical of the GAA's nationalist heritage, rubble from the Easter Rising 1916 was used to construct a grassy hill at the railway end of the ground. This area would later become known as Hill 16 and is recognised throughout Ireland as the stand of Dublin Gaelic football supporters.

However, the war itself was on its way to Croke Park.

On Novermber 21, 1920 during the Irish War of Independence, 14 innocent people were killed at Croke Park during a match between Tipperary and Dublin by British army auxiliaries nicknamed the Black and Tans, the most hated and reviled by the Irish people. 

Reports vary as to how events occurred, but what is known is the Black and Tans entered the ground and fired indiscriminately at the 10,000 Irish present in retaliation for the murder of the British Cairo gang by volunteers working under the orders of Michael Collins the previous night.

Among the dead were two 14-year-old children, and Tipperary's captain Michael Hogan, who now has a permanent place in Irish folklore history. As a tank rolled onto the pitch, Hogan refused to be bullied and continued to play the game he loved by kicking the football over the Black and Tans' tank much to the delight of the crowd. He was shot dead in the middle of the pitch. A stand in the famous ground is now named in his honour.

Bloody Sunday 1920 indeed was a dark day in the Irish war.

However, this did not deter the Irish from playing and attending their national games. Such was the wealth and popularity of the GAA (an amateur organisation to this day), that in the 1980s they decided to revamp the entire ground to bring it up to modern standards.

The project was spilt into four phases over 14 years, allowing the ground to be used for major matches each year. Thanks to the "Celtic Tiger" economic boom of the 1990s, Croke Park was finished on time and was opened by then GAA President, Sean Kelly, in 2005.

The ground has a capacity of 82,300, making it the fourth largest in Europe behind the Nou Camp, Wembley, and the San Siro in Milan.

Yet, while the Irish got to enjoy this astounding stadium, it was virtually closed to the rest of the world.

As the ethos of the GAA was to promote Irish games, up until the 1970s those that played GAA were banned from playing rugby, soccer, or cricket. The now famous Rule 42 banned the use of GAA property for playing "foreign" games.

In essence this meant British games as two games of American football—between Notre Dame and Navy, and the Chicago Bears and and Pittsburgh Steelers—were permitted during the 1990s.

This became extremely problematic in 2004 as the IRFU and FAI, who ground share at Lansdowne Road (the world's oldest rugby stadium), decided that the stadium needed to be revamped and capacity increased. With no other stadium in Ireland fit to hold an international match, it became a very real prospect that the Irish national teams would have to play their "home" matches abroad, with Celtic's Parkhead a real possibility.

Thankfully we live in the 21st century and the GAA saw sense, or more accurately GAA President Sean Kelly saw sense. After months and months of national debate in the media, in pubs, in homes, in shops, the GAA relaxed Rule 42 to allow the temporary use of Croke Park for the playing of Ireland international matches.

This was seen throughout the country as a sign of a country that was finally able to leave the past behind and show the world its independence.

The first "foreign" game at Croke Park was between Ireland and France. which sadly ended in a last minute victory for France following a Vincent Clerc try.

Next up, England.

So, we're back to the wet day in February. The country is at a standstill following the weeks of arguing over the playing of God Save the Queen at the home of Bloody Sunday, at the home of Irish sporting nationalism.

How would the patriotic Irish welcome their oppressors of so long to the jewel in their crown? Was the Irish nation mature enough?

By heck was it mature enough!! It is well worth watching the youtube clips as the national anthems play. Has the English anthem ever got so much respect? The players themselves look surprised while the Irish players held back tears singing Ireland's Call and Amhran na Bhfiann.

Sadly for the English rugby team, it was all they held back. In a power pack display the Irish ripped the English apart, defeating the then world champions 43-13, England's largest ever defeat in Five/Six Nations history.

It was a day where we said, "This is Ireland, We are Ireland, We are proud."

Sadly Croke Park has not had too much to shout about lately, as Ireland's soccer and rugby teams have stuttered over the last two years. However that is all about to change, as the two codes enter a new era under the management of Munster hero Declan Kidney and Il Trap, Giovanni Trapattoni.

The aim of this article is to get people to look beyond the bricks, cement and steel it takes to build a stadium. Very rarely are sporting stadiums just constructs of man, they have a history, they play host to history, they are history.

Even in Ireland so much could be written about Lansdowne Road, Dalymount Park, or Limerick's Market Fields.

Worldwide there is Wembley, the San Siro, the Nou Camp, the Maracana. The list goes on and on.

Each I'm sure with their own unique history.