Hi you there.
In this page we´re going to speak about the sports which are played in Ireland:
Football, Gaelic football, golf, cycling, hurling and rugby.
This page is written by Pedro San Emeterio, Marcos Mata and Isaac Gutierrez.
CYCLING
In Ireland cycling is very important for the people and it had a great figure, Stephen Roche.
He was born in 1959 in Dundrum, he was a professional cyclist from 1981 to 1993, in total he won 58 stages who the Tour of Trance, the Giro of Italia, Paris Nice, Tour of Romandie, Vuelta al Pais Vasco, Criterium International, and the most important; The Road race World Championship (RWC).
Stephen Roche was the second cyclist in getting the big three in the same year (in 1987), Giro de Italia, Tour de France and The world road world championship. He achieved something that until now it had only been done the big Eddy Merckx.
Stephen Roche has a son that is currently running a professional team (Ag2r-La Mondiale.)
This is Nicolas Roche he was born in 1984 in Conflans-Sainte-Honoraine, Nicolas Roche has double nationality: Irish and French.
Nicolas Roche runs in the team Ag2r, he is young and has a great potential for the future, but he has already achieved great victories as: The tour of Porvenir, The tour of Limousin, The championship of Ireland route and 1 stage in Vuelta in Spain, but he has fought stages for the victory with Alejandro Valverde.
FOOTBALL
The Irish football league, also known as Airtricity league (its sponsor), started in 1921.
At the beginning the league had eigth teams, but now there are twenty-two teams divided into two categories: The Premier division which has ten teams and The First Division which has twelve teams. All the teams are from the Republic of Ireland except the Derry City FC which is from North Ireland.
The Irish season starts in March and finishes in November.
-The Shamrock Rovers :
The Shamrock Rovers is the most succesfull team of Ireland. It was created in Ringsend, in the south of Dublin, in 1901. It was the first Irish team in European competitions. It plays in the Tallaght stadium since 2009. In the past it played in the Glenmature Park stadium.
Its rival is the Bohemian Football Club. It has played the Premier division always, except In the year 2005 which played in the First Division.
It has won sixteen leagues of Ireland, twenty-four cups of Ireland, eighteen Leagues of Ireland Shield and one cup of the Irish league.
-National team of Ireland:
It was created in 1920. It has played in three World Cups, in one Europe Cup and in two Olympic games. Last year the referee stole the match between Ireland and France, Thierry Henry scored a goal with the hand.
The player with more matches is Shay Given (109) and the player who scored more goals is Robbie Keane (45). Now the manager is Trapattoni and Ireland is the thity-fourth in the Fifa´s ranking.
HURLING
The game of hurling is more than just a game -- it is Ireland's national passion. But to appreciate hurling, one must look beyond the mere fact that it is a sport, because it is much more. Countering the trend towards big-money professional athletics, hurling has remained strictly amateur. It is a game played purely for the fun and history of it.
The object of the game is for players to use a wooden stick called a hurley to hit a small ball called a sliotar between the opponents' goalposts either over the crossbar for one point, or under the crossbar into a net guarded by a goalkeeper for one goal, which is equivalent to three points. The sliotar can be caught in the hand and carried for not more than four steps, struck in the air, or struck on the ground with the hurley. It can be kicked or slapped with an open hand (the hand pass) for short-range passing. A player who wants to carry the ball for more than three steps has to bounce or balance the sliotar on the end of the stick and the ball can only be handled twice while in his possession.
No protective padding is worn by players. The game has been described as "a bastion of humility", with player names absent from jerseys and a player's number decided by his position on the field.
Hurling is a great game, not just because it is a great game by itself, but because it seems to illustrate the best of Irish culture -- its folksy character, its work-hard and play-hard virtues, and its community-based values.
RUGBY
Rugby was born in Great Britain in 1823.
In Ireland rugby is the most important sport since many years ago. They play the tournament of the VI nations with the best teams of the continent.
Ireland succeeded to win the tournament of VI Nation ten times.
The other teams in the VI Nations are Scotland, Wales, England, France and Italy.
In Ireland is the biggest rugby stadium: the Crooke Park
2011 has been the best of the history of Irish rugby.
The team has the best players in the entire European continent, and some of them have been O`Driscoll, O`Gara, O`Callaghan, O`Connell and Stringer.
These players have achieved Ireland to be at the head of European rugby and got the last VI Nations.
GOLF
-Rory Mcllroy:
He was born the fourth of May in 1989. He is a professional golfer from Northern Ireland. When he was amateur he topped the World Amateur Golf Ranking. He was only seventeen years old.
Later that year he turned professional. He is in the top ten of the official World Golf Ranking and he also represented Europe in the Ryder Cup.
He has won the amateur Irish Close Championship twice, the professional PGA Tour and the professional European Tour.
-Shane Lowry:
He was born the second of April in 1987, in Clara, County Offaly, Ireland. He is an Irish professional golfer. He is the son of Brendan Lowry, who was a football player.
In 2009, Lowry won the three Irish Open on the European Tour. Lowry became professional the week after the Irish Open triumph.
In 2010 he finished in fourth place in the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, moving him into the top one hundred (top-100) of the World Golf Ranking.
ALL IRELAND FINAL
The All-Ireland Senior Football Championship is the premier competition in the sport of Gaelic football. The series of games are organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association and are played during the Irish summer and early autumn with the All-Ireland Football Final being played on the third or fourth Sunday in September in Croke Park, Dublin. The prize for the winning team is the Sam Maguire Cup. The competition is currently sponsored jointly by SuperValu, Ulster Bank and Vodafone.
Every county in Ireland except Kilkenny participates in the competition, as do London and New York), so it involves far more teams than the Hurling Championship. Kerry are the most successful football team in the history of the championship, followed by Dublin. Cork defeated Down in the 2010 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final.
