Dublin Sports & Outdoors Tips by Lochlainn

A gentleman's sport played by ruffians ... Soccer Review

We can only wonder what heights Ireland might have reached in world soccer if petty politics hadn't split the island into two football teams around the same time as the island itself was divided into two disfunctional halves. A glimpse however was revealed in the early 1970s at Dalymount Park when an All-Ireland selection (even without the great Georgie Best) were narrowly defeated 4-3 by a Brazil team that featured most of the 1970 World Cup winning squad - easily the greatest international football side of the modern era. Since then both Northern Ireland and the Republic have qualified themselves for the World Cup Finals and neither have disgraced themselves by a long shot; which of course merely makes the question more tantalising still ...

Soccer internationals these days are played at Lansdowne Road - though tickets are hard to get, the unique atmosphere of that stadium is a treasure to savour while it still lasts (plans are afoot to build a new stadium elsewhere).

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Five Nations plus Iddley Rugby Review

In Dublin parlance - Oyirland, Ingerland, Sco'land, Wadles and Deh French have been joined by anudder rugby kuntry for dee anniyal Foiv Nayshuns Toorneyment wheyer everrywun playz everrywun else wunce an' we all take turrens for deh howem matches.

Roughly translated that means that you should coincide your Spring visit to Dublin, if you really want to see the town hop that is, for the years when we play host to the Scots and the Welsh (the English and French aren't as much craic and the Italians aren't even aware they're in the competition yet!).

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Stand on Hill 16 when the Dubs are playing Gaelic football Review

Only for the not so faint hearted, but an experience to last a lifetime! However you've really got to understand the background to savour the event in full. Hill 16 is a section of Croke Park Stadium, named either because the embankment was constructed from the rubble after the 1916 Easter Rising or simply in honour of a First World War battle in which the Dublin Fusiliers took part - the result in either case was a hastily constructed 'poor relation' of a stand where the great unwashed assembled. Whichever story you believe, for true Dubs there is no other place to watch a GAA match than from its (thankfully renovated) slopes. In fact, the 'Hill' is the lowest stand of the lot (and is due for demolition in the next few years), and to be honest it also sports the poorest 'view' of the pitch. But to us Dubs that's neither here nor there. It's ours! When the boys in blue make their all too infrequent incursions into the upper echelons of the All Ireland Football competition there is nowhere else to be. Ignore the bodies being passed head high above you, ignore the ribald and litigatious comments hurled in your direction, ignore the action down the other end of the field (as you can't see it in any case) - just savour when the Dublin players run across and genuflect before you, or when the poor referee wanders within earshot and you learn more about human anatomy in five seconds than a surgeon learns in seven years training, or when a glorious Dublin point sails through the posts before you and as you crane your neck to follow the flight of the ball you realise that you couldn't fall backwards if the winds of hell themselves were blowing in your face. This is not sport, this is a transcendental revelatory experience of the highest order and one to savour for the rest of one's tenure on this earth. Getting a ticket for this event is an altogether different challenge - we find ourselves that a combination of guile, charm, threats and thievery generally works best!

Theme: Sports Watching

Jogging more than the memory Hiking/ Walking/Jogging Review

Staying in the city centre but wish to jog somewhere free from traffic fumes? No problem! Dublin offers several choices thanks to its abundance of well-sized parks. On the northside a chain of parks links the old Blessington Street reservoir with the Royal Canal via an old Canal extension that has been landscaped quite beautifully. To the west lies Phoenix Park, so huge that one could happily jog there daily and never duplicate the same route. My personal favourite is on the south side, where the Grand Canal towpath means one can run under the road bridges and avoid having to run at street level for decent stretches. A word of warning - despite the nice splash of green on the city map avoid Mountjoy Square near O'Connell Street (not a very safe part of the city) and St Stephens Green during mid-day (way too many perambulists for a clear run).

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