Two codes, two stories. Rugby kept one team for the whole island after partition; soccer split in 1921 into the IFA in Belfast and the FAI in Dublin. 24 turning points, each from the sources linked under it. For Gaelic games, see the history of the GAA.
After partition the IRFU decided to keep running the game across all 32 counties and four provinces. Soccer split in 1921; rugby did not.
Four in the men’s Six Nations (and the Five Nations before it): 1948, 2009, 2018 and 2023. The women’s team won one in 2013.
In 1921 the Leinster FA broke from the Belfast-based IFA after a row over an Irish Cup replay and complaints of Belfast bias, and founded the FAI in Dublin. FIFA later limited the IFA to Northern Ireland.
To the quarter-finals at their first World Cup: three draws, a penalty shoot-out win over Romania, then a 1–0 defeat by Italy.
A song by Phil Coulter, commissioned by the IRFU for the 1995 Rugby World Cup as an anthem the whole island’s players could share.
Drawn from these Wikipedia articles, read in October 2026: Ireland national rugby union team, Irish Rugby Football Union, Triple Crown (rugby union), Football Association of Ireland, Ireland's Call, Ireland women's national rugby union team, Grand Slam (rugby union), Irish Football Association, Republic of Ireland national football team, League of Ireland, Northern Ireland national football team, Republic of Ireland women's national football team, UEFA Euro 1988, 1990 FIFA World Cup, Northern Ireland women's national football team. The Triple Crown article says Ireland are the latest winners, in 2026; we have not counted every Triple Crown. “Fourth oldest association” is the IFA article’s claim. “Ireland’s Call” has its critics as well as its supporters, as its article records. For the GAA’s old ban on these games, see GAA history; for Irish Olympians, the Olympics.