The is the national
Football team of the
Republic Of Ireland and is governed by the
Football Association Of Ireland (FAI). They had not qualified for any international tournaments until
Euro 88 in Germany. That was followed by reaching the quarter-finals of the
1990 World Cup . This was the first time that the team qualified for two consecutive tournaments. The Irish also reached the second round in the
1994 and
2002 World Cups.
The FAI announced on
October 17 2005 that the contract of manager
Brian Kerr would not be renewed following elimination from the
2006 World Cup Qualifiers . On
9 January 2006 the position was offered to
Steve Staunton , who will be mentored until
Euro 2008 by Sir
Bobby Robson .
The Republic of Ireland play their home matches at and
2009 which will entail the Republic playing games at
Croke Park during reconstruction. The all seater new stadium will increase seated capacity for competitive games from 36,000 to 50,000.
Prior to the
1980s , the Republic of Ireland played most home games at
Dalymount Park but progressively more games were played at Lansdowne following a safety review which reduced Dalymount's capacity and the last international match to be played there was against
Morocco in
1990 . The Republic of Ireland competed in their first International under Steve Staunton on
March 2 , 2006 in which they easily defeated Sweden by the scoreline of 3 - 0.
- 1930 - ''Did not enter''
- 1934 to 1986 - ''Did not qualify''
- 1990 - Quarter-finals
- 1994 - Round 2
- 1998 - ''Did not qualify''
- 2002 - Round 2
- 2006 - ''Did not qualify''
The Irish squad was once known for liberal use of the so-called "Granny Rule", which means that a nation (in this case, Ireland) can claim foreign players if they can prove that the particular player has Irish ancestors and has still zero caps. Examples of this phenomenon are:
- John Aldridge - England
- Tony Cascarino - England (his Italian mother was ''adopted'' by an Irish grandmother, but not ''born'', so actually, he was not eligible, but this was discovered only much later)
- David Connolly - England
- Matt Holland - England
- Ray Houghton - Scotland
- Mick McCarthy - England
- Clinton Morrison - England
- Andy Townsend - England
