to ensure track and field had a venue near the city in the 1870s.
The backhanded compliment was all women’s sport could expect 75 years ago. As Ger Siggins and Malachy Clerkin noted in their 2010 history of the Stadium, Lansdowne Road, there was heavy criticism from the authoritarian Catholic archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, who believed that the sight of female limbs would corrupt the minds of educated Irish men.
The giant-sized O’Driscoll poster that was floated onto the field after the men’s game and other formalities around his farewell ensured that Fiona Coughlan’s team were forced to warm-up on the back pitch and change in the Lansdowne clubhouse. Their planned four-minute walk to the Aviva pitch was slowed by thousands of supporters.
But, in general, the history makers did not feel welcome. Certainly not enough to be offered a standalone fixture or another evening on the undercard, after the men.“It was nuts,” said another, “some of my mates were there for the men’s game and never realised the women’s was after so they left.” “[Future women’s matches in the Aviva] is a call for the FAI and the IRFU but this match is heading towards 38,000,” said stadium director Martin Murphy. “From the get go, we planned for women’s events as well as men’s – there are design features in the changing rooms. There are women involved in the [male] rugby teams. We have had physios and doctors, so there are women in those roles.