History
History of the Stadium
Aviva Stadium is located on the site of the old Lansdowne Road Stadium which was the worlds oldest international sports stadium.
The creation of Lansdowne Road Stadium was the vision of Henry William Dunlop, an outstanding young athlete who organised the first All Ireland Athletics Championships. His vision was to create a purpose built sporting venue and this he did at Lansdowne Road where the Stadium first opened for athletics in 1872.
See www.avivastadium.ie for much more information.
The original Lansdowne Road was a multi sports venue including as it did a cinder track for athletics, a cricket pitch, a croquet green, three football pitches and facilities for archery and lawn tennis. The first rugby match played at the ground was an inter provincial between Leinster and Munster in December 1876. In 1878 Lansdowne held its first international rugby fixture. While Dunlop had conceived Lansdowne as a multi-purpose venue the ground soon became synonymous with rugby - although even in the 1950s a crowd of 40,000 witnessed Olympic gold medallist Ronnie Delany run there in an international athletics meeting. In its old incarnation the Lansdowne Road Stadium was the oldest sports stadium in Europe.
The first football game at the stadium took place in 1971 when Ireland played Italy in a friendly.
The old stadium had a long an proud history of hosting world class athletics and sports events but it also has seen some of the worlds best artists including: Frank Sinatra, Liza Minelli and Sammy Davies Junior, Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Neil Diamond, Bon Jovi, The Eagles, U2, REM.