What is the history of college football in Ireland?

College football in Ireland is not a new concept. In fact, the sport has taken its talents across the Atlantic seven times and there are two more games scheduled.

One of the next games in Ireland will take place in Week 0 as Notre Dame will take on Navy for the third time in this beautiful country and then next year, Florida State will battle Georgia Tech to kick off the 2024 season with an ACC battle in Dublin.

In case we don’t all remember, Northwestern took on Nebraska in Dublin to kick off the 2022 season and the Wildcats picked up their lone Big Ten win of the season over Scott Frost. That was pretty much the final straw for the Nebraska legend.

The 2023 season will mark the second straight year with a game in Ireland kicking off the season and 2024 will be the third straight.

I don’t know about you, but I kind of like this new tradition.

College football history in Ireland

The first college football game in Ireland helped celebrate the Dublin millennium and it was called the Emerald Isle Classic. It was created to try and attract some of the millions of Americans with Irish descent back to Ireland and it seemingly worked.

That first game was played at Lansdowne Road and the first game was so popular that it drew nearly 43,000 fans in 1988. Boston College went over the Atlantic and upset the 8-1 Army Black Knights in the inaugural game.

In 1989, it was No. 24 Pittsburgh who faced Rutgers at Lansdowne Road and the Panthers won 46-29 in front of a much more modest crowd of 19,800.

The popularity grew in 1996 when Navy and Notre Dame squared off at Croke Park with over 38,000 fans in attendance and the two played again in 2012 at Aviva Stadium in front of almost 50,000 fans. Notre Dame won both of those games convincingly.

Penn State and UCF were the next pairing to head to Ireland in 2014 and the Nittany Lions escaped with a 26-24 win in front of a record crowd of over 53,000 at Croke Park.

Georgia Tech and Boston College drew 40,000 fans in 2016 to kick off their seasons with the Yellow Jackets winning at Aviva Stadium, 17-14.

And then we all know what happened last year with Nebraska and Northwestern.

Notre Dame and Navy play this season and we’ll see Florida State take on Georgia Tech next year, both at Aviva Stadium, to keep the tradition going.