Lansdowne Road Stadium

Do you really believe that Athlone can handle 50,000 Celtic supporters, like Seville is doing at the moment. Or do you believe that any state or semi-state company can handle the thousands of people traveling to games. I am sorry but they can’t do that as it is. The stadium has to be in a major city – ie. Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick… I believe Landsdown is the ideal spot (which is pretty much proven over the years). Anyway you can’t just leave Landsdown in its current state for club games, its the oldest rugby stadium in the world and needs upgrading.

And by the way the ‘select’ number of people living in Dublin, were not selected by anyone. They choose to live there and represent quite a large proportion of the population. 😉

Sorry Fin,
Got a bit carried away. Again I will say that the stadium needs to be in a major city. And I don’t understand your perspective. I would see Galway as being a much more practical venue than Athlone. It is equally as central as Dublin (geographically anyway) and is capable of providing transoprt, accomodation and enterainment for hoards of travelling fans, as well as offering plenty of tourist attractions for foreign visitors.

However I still believe landsdown is the prime location.

OK look at a map of Ireland – where do all the rail lines lead to – Dublin. Where does the main roads in the country run to – Dublin. What is the capital of Ireland and has over 1/3 of its population – you’ve guessed it Dublin. My point is the infrastructure is just not there to support putting the stadium elsewhere in the country.

I suppose that as a rugby fan I have sentimental attachment to Lansdowne – but it really is a very handy place to get to. It takes 20 minutes to walk to from Stephen’s Green. As for building apartments etc on its site – does Dublin really need more souless apartments in D4 that you or I can never afford. No I don’t think so.

Do we need an 80,000 seat venue at Lansdowne – for maybe Ireland V England once every 2 years. But it’s no way near full now for Ireland V Italy (capacity 48,000) another 6 Nations games so I think 65,000 is enough (eircom park was only going to be 45,000 which the FAI were happy with). If you get the chance go to the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff and see what that is like (its practically in the middle of the city) and compare it with out of town stadia elsewhere.

Do you think the GAA would have built their stadium anywhere other than Croke park?

Build it and build it at Lansdowne!

all of our “infrastructure” is centred on transporting the population to and from the capital from other major centres around the country…

you saw the chaos last year when dublin supporters attempted to travel in huge numbers to semple stadium in thurles.

Because you’ll have great craic sitting in the M50 traffic jam?

The Athlone/A City argument is the exact same as Abbotstown/Lansdowne one. Realistically Bertie wouldn’t mind it in Abbottstown as the man has never spent a real day in his life in our fair capital – he knows nothing of what it’s really like trying to get around the place and what it feels like to spend 30 minutes travelling such a small distance. Sitting int he back of a tinted Merc while your driver speedas and the Gardai wave you on is hardly being down with your people.
If any minister actually had to experience transport as we do (instead of the pleasant stroll from Sandymount to Merrion Sq) then there would be a massive increase in spending in that area – and I think the Stadium would be built in Lansdowne.
I don’t think having craic is just what you make of it yourself – the location plays an enormous role. How many people go abroad to other cities for a weekend for a match? Locating it miles away from any airport or rail system would be madness and definitely stop people coming. some hassle just isn’t worth it.

As for building in Cork or Limerick… no minister would sanction that, as good an idea as that is (hello – national spatial strategy???) nearly every project ever built in this country has revolved around Dublin – we seem intent onstuffing all four million of us into one little pocket on the east coast.
If the Stadium did go South or West – would that not provide a motivation to actually develop and improve the transport links to these places??? Which would also bring secondary benefits. True one third of the country lives in Dublin – but two thirds do not.

50%…… don’t know where you got that stat.
i believe there is 1.5 m in the six counties and as a national stadium would cater for the whole isle then how would define 50% living in leinster… and just as a footnote..last time i checked westmeath was in leinster

fair point but all the arguments were about this “famous” walk from dublin centre to lansdowne…and the pubs encountered on the way…in the states people park in the car park and take out cans and drink there…fair enough they may have the weather sometimes but as an example it shows no matter what people are going to enjoy themselves as they are there primarily for the game

and d_d_ made a good point as regards the spacial strategy…limerick has shown albeit to a limited degree that it can cope with major matches with munster playing in thomond …
the idea of having down in one of the regional cities is gone but if it did then the investment in that particular city would be profound…. it’s infrastructure would have to be upgraded and then that in itself would bring more investment etc…. if the were serious about their “big idea” then they would think of locating it elsewhere but as i said it’s never going to happen.

how and ever, back to it’s position in dublin, on the outskirts would be preferable i would think to the rest of the country let alone the residents of lansdowne(apart from the publican’s) as we wouldn’t need to go into the centre of dublin at all…this would free up traffic- well a bit anyway- in the centre.

that’s true…and i have been going since about the same age too. has anyone projected what the 65,000 stadium would look like on lansdowne site?
and just cos i think it’s fun, why should we have 2 stadiums of large capacities in the city? seeing that we as tax payer’s are paying for both of them do we not have the right to say( and not the gaa council) what should be played in them…i know it’s totally off the topic but hey…
but speaking of the character of landsdowne… would this character not be lost in regards to the layout of the stadium if it’s taken down and rotated???
and where do we play international’s until the new one is built and in all honesty that could take years..i don’t relish going to england or for that matter scotland for our international games either in rugby or football. we would be the laughing stock of europe…going to a foreign country to play our “home” games…

Fin – the decision about what where to play in coming years is going to have to be made regardless of whether Lansdowne is out of action for rebuilding or not – UEFA very soon won’t be letting the soccer team use temporary seating, thus reducing the capacity of the ground and the FAIs gate revenue dramatically.

There is an argument for saying that the FAI should help either Bohs or Shels complete Dalymount or Tolka to arount 15 – 20,000 and use that for match as a (very) temporary measure while Lansdowne is redevelopped.

The Rugby team is different – but they could atlernate matches between Belfast, Limerick and possibly Cork.

Both of these measure would mean both the IRFU and the FAI would feel the pinch for a while – but if they leave the matter run and run it will come to a head at some point.

I personally think that redeveloping Lansdowne into a 65,000 stadium is the best option. The importance of the rail line cannot be overstated too, and there would be scope for redeveloping the station (to where the current West stand is) along with the stadium.