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Prime Minister of Ireland Enda Kenny speaks at the annual St. Patrick's Day breakfast in Boston, Massachusetts – REUTERS
Seeking to replicate the successful hosting by similarly populated New Zealand in 2011, the bid would see games played on both sides of an Irish border once beset by sectarian violence. Unlike soccer, the national team is an all-Ireland selection.
“Ireland will put together a winning bid that is impossible to resist,” Prime Minister Enda Kenny told a news conference. “Irish people love our sport. We want to share the Irish sporting experience with the world.”
The hosting of games north of the border would mark the latest in a series of high profile sporting events to visit Northern Ireland to help it move on from the violence that cost the lives of 3,600 people prior to a 1998 peace deal.
This year’s Giro d’Italia race successfully began in Belfast, while it was also announced that golf’s British Open was set to return to the province for the first time in over 60 years as early as 2019.
“Northern Ireland has demonstrated that whatever the event, whatever the occasion, we deliver,” said Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson, who was accompanied Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, once a leading figure in the Irish Republican Army’s (IRA) armed fight against British rule.
Ireland laid out plans for the bid a year ago after winning the backing of Ireland’s Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), meaning it can use stadiums like the 82,300-capacity Croke Park.
Alongside Croke Park, there are another 10 Gaelic grounds as big or bigger than the second-largest rugby stadium in the country, Munster’s Thomond Park, although many require major renovation to stage an international tournament.
The GAA, governing body for Ireland’s unique sports hurling and Gaelic football, had to ask its members to allow the grounds to be used. Until 1971, the GAA banned members from playing or attending so-called “foreign games” like rugby.
The bid also comes as Joe Schmidt’s Ireland team stand third in the world rankings following their Six Nations triumph earlier this year and a November test series sweep that included victories over Australia and South Africa.
