Ireland

From The Oval in 1875 to Lansdowne Road

The Irish Football Union was set up in December 1874 and the team played its first international on 15 February 1875, losing 7-0 to England at The Oval. Four years later the Irish Rugby Football Union was formed as an amalgamation of the regional unions, and it has governed the game across the whole island ever since. That all-island structure is the reason two anthems are played before home matches: Amhrán na bhFiann first, then Ireland's Call, written for the side so that players from Ulster and the Republic stand to the same tune.

Home is the Aviva Stadium, which opened in May 2010 on the Lansdowne Road site and holds 51,700. The ground is wedged between a DART line and the terraced streets of Ballsbridge, which shapes everything about a match there — there is no car-park culture, supporters arrive on foot and by train from the pubs of Ballsbridge and Baggot Street, and the stadium's north end is deliberately low so that the neighbouring houses keep their light.

The honours, and the one gap

Ireland have won four Grand Slams — 1948, 2009, 2018 and 2023 — and the Triple Crown fifteen times, the most recent on 14 March 2026. Andy Farrell, who succeeded Joe Schmidt in 2019, has delivered two Six Nations titles including the 2023 Slam, and a side that spent long stretches of 2023 and 2024 at the top of the world rankings. The team's 2022 series win in New Zealand remains the high-water mark of the professional era for Irish rugby.

The gap is the World Cup. Ireland have reached the quarter-finals eight times and have never played a semi-final, a record that frames everything about the current cycle: the 2027 tournament in Australia is now less than a year away, and the squad Farrell is picking in November is being picked with that in mind.

Farrell himself was away for part of 2025, taking leave to coach the British and Irish Lions to a series win in Australia while Simon Easterby ran Ireland through the 2025 Six Nations. That campaign ended third, Ireland's only defeat a 42-27 loss to France. Farrell came back for the autumn, and on 6 June 2026 the IRFU announced it had extended his contract through to the 2031 World Cup. Chief executive Kevin Potts called him "a truly world-class coach and an exceptional leader".

2026: a Triple Crown, and a title lost by two points

The 2026 Six Nations was the closest Ireland have come to a championship since 2024 without winning it. Four wins — over England, Scotland, Wales and Italy — and a single away defeat by France left them on 19 table points. France finished on 20.

The last day, 14 March, was the sharpest version of that. Ireland took Scotland apart 43-21 at the Aviva, scoring three tries inside the opening ten minutes and never trailing. Jamie Osborne, Dan Sheehan, Robert Baloucoune and Tommy O'Brien crossed, O'Brien twice including on the final play, and the Connacht lock Darragh Murray scored on his Six Nations debut three minutes after coming on. Jack Crowley kicked five conversions and a penalty. It was a fourth Triple Crown in five seasons. Then the news came through from the other fixture: Thomas Ramos had kicked a last-minute penalty to beat England 48-46 and hand France back-to-back titles. Farrell's line afterwards was that "the performance is one thing, the manner is another".

Ireland went into the November 2026 window ranked fourth in the world, behind South Africa, New Zealand and France, on rankings computed up to 1 November.

The Nations Championship, and where Ireland stand

This season is the first running of the Nations Championship, which replaces the old pattern of loosely arranged summer tours and autumn friendlies. The six Six Nations countries sit in one table, the Rugby Championship four plus Fiji and Japan in the other. Each side plays all six teams from the opposing hemisphere once — three rounds in July, three in November — with four points for a win, two for a draw and bonus points for four tries or a defeat inside seven.

Ireland's July was two wins from three. They took Australia 33-31 in Sydney on 4 July, beat Japan 36-20 in Newcastle on 11 July, and lost 40-21 to New Zealand in Auckland on 18 July. That left them fourth in the northern table on ten points, behind France on 12, Scotland on 11 and England, also on ten but ahead on difference.

The three Dublin matches therefore matter in a way autumn internationals previously did not. Ireland host Argentina on Friday 6 November at 20.10, Fiji on Saturday 14 November at 20.10 and South Africa on Saturday 21 November at 16.40. Where they finish in the table sets their opponent at the finals weekend at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham, from 27 to 29 November, where the twelve teams are paired by position — sixth against sixth, fifth against fifth, and the two table-winners in the first Nations Championship final on 29 November.

A squad held together with tape

Farrell named a 36-player squad on 21 October and the absentee list was longer than the selection debates. Caelan Doris, the captain, hurt his foot in Leinster's 36-7 URC final win over the Bulls at Croke Park in June, missed the July tour, then suffered a fresh setback after surgery on the foot and knee when an infection slowed the knee's recovery. He is out for the rest of 2026 and aiming to play again in January 2027. Also unavailable: Jack Crowley, Jack Conan, Iain Henderson, Harry Byrne, Calvin Nash, Jack Boyle, Paddy McCarthy and Bryn Ward. Garry Ringrose was named but then ruled out of all three matches with a hamstring problem, and James Lowe has left for Japan.

Dan Sheehan, who took the armband on the summer tour, continues as captain at 27. Andrew Porter, Ryan Baird and Mack Hansen are back from long injuries — Porter's return pushed Jeremy Loughman out of the squad entirely. The two uncapped names are both from Ulster: back-rower James McNabney, and Jamie Benson, a 24-year-old who has played out-half, centre and full-back for Harlequins and qualifies through his mother. Around them sit the survivors of the Grand Slam era — Tadhg Beirne, Tadhg Furlong, Rónan Kelleher, Josh van der Flier, Bundee Aki, Jamison Gibson-Park, Robbie Henshaw — all past fifty caps.

Farrell has not named his starting side for Argentina. The open questions are at six and thirteen, where the injuries have cleared space, and the answers double as World Cup auditions.

What the ground is actually like

The Aviva has a reputation problem, and the IRFU knows it. A long piece published on 14 March 2026, the day of the Scotland match, laid out the complaints from people who work on the matchday: supporters who do not leave the bars and restaurants until ten or fifteen minutes before kick-off, a heavy corporate allocation, premium tiers that sit spectators back from the pitch, and a crowd that went quiet and distracted through the Italy fixture earlier in the campaign.

The fixes have been small and musical. Barry Murphy, the former Munster and Ireland back turned comedian, now sings the anthems, which has worked. The walk-out music has been moved off U2, through a Fatboy Slim track, and more recently to a Sinéad O'Connor recording of a traditional song; The Cranberries get an airing pre-match and Neil Diamond fills the breaks. The comparison everyone reaches for is France, where bands play in the street before kick-off and keep going through the match, and Wales, where alcohol-free sections have not cost the ground anything in noise.

The counter-evidence is that when Ireland play well the place does fill out and lift: the crowd was better against Wales in 2026 and loud for the Scotland Triple Crown decider, and Joe McCarthy went out of his way after a win over Argentina to praise the noise. Two of the three November fixtures are under floodlights at 20.10, which is the IRFU's own bet on the problem — a Friday night kick-off against Argentina means a city that has finished work rather than one still at brunch.