This book is the first full-length academic study of sport in nineteenth-century Dublin. Drawing extensively from historical and archival material, it maps out the emergence and development of modern sport in the city as traditional pastimes were progressively replaced by formally organized games. It examines the initial role of Dublin University students in fostering such games among the city's rapidly expanding middle classes and illustrates how commercial forces, sustained by a growing number of retailers and entrepreneurs, proved equally decisive in shaping new recreational habits. Crucially, it explores how the evolution of an urban and imperial British society as well as Irish customs and a renewal of cultural nationalism in late nineteenth-century contributed to fashioning the original and distinctive sporting scene which emerged in Victorian Dublin.

This book also depicts a city at play, where an unremittable passion for games and excitement drove Dubliners to join sport clubs or congregate in the stands. Eventually, social class, gender, political allegiance and local pride were central to creating such sporting identities and, conversely, leisure activities reinforced one's status within the community.