Mapping Irish Football

Abstract

• The Mapping Irish Football project called on the crowd to share any newspaper references they may have come across of women and any code of football prior to and including 1973. It is hoped that this project will start a conversation amongst researchers interested in Irish sports to do more to document the history and development of women’s football. Women’s football of any code only started to become popular in Ireland from the mid 1960’s onwards, with governing bodies starting to form in the 1970s. However, very little is known of what went before. Through this collaboration we can start to piece together the knowledge that exists within the research community and identify where the gaps in our knowledge lie. The project ran from January 2019 to November 2021 and collected 254 references. The dates range from 1881 to 1973. This is not an exhaustive list of references but a sample of the long history of women playing football in Ireland.