Bournemouth midfielder Gavin Kilkenny and Danny McNamara, who is currently on loan at Newport County also recieved their first call-ups.

Ireland U21 manager Stephen Kenny has defended his decision to call-up League of Ireland players despite Stephen Bradley’s desire for them to be excluded.

Stephen Kenny wants Irish football to stop imposing limits on its own ambition.

There’ll be bigger fish to fry for Stephen Kenny during his tenure with the FAI but the first 10 weeks have been an eye-opener and not all for the right reasons.

Even, and especially, at the height of Ireland’s success under Jack Charlton, there were always dissenting voices in football — not only Eamon Dunphy and not always quite so public.

Stephen Kenny believes the healthy number of League of Ireland graduates who have gone on to claim senior caps for Ireland means the domestic game should be well able to provide a reliable source of quality players for his U21 squads.

The next generation of Irish footballers have been warned in no uncertain terms by new U21 manager Stephen Kenny that their international futures rest firmly in his hands.

Newly appointed manager of the Republic of Ireland U21 team, Stephen Kenny, believes that encouragement of young players is the way forward for soccer in Ireland.

Though broadly welcoming new roles for Mick McCarthy and Stephen Kenny in Irish football, former internationals Liam Brady and Niall Quinn have expressed reservations about the FAI’s succession plan for the Republic of Ireland manager’s job, with Brady fearing a ‘cosmetic’ arrangement that could look ‘ridiculous’ should it backfire.

Speaking as he was named SSE Airtricity League/Soccer Writers’ Association of Ireland Player of the Month for October/November, McEleney admitted “it was a sad day” to see Kenny leave Oriel Park.

As he sat down to dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel on Sunday night alongside Ireland’s record goalscorer and the last manager to lead the country to the World Cup, there was no inferiority complex for Stephen Kenny.

Critics of the plan for Stephen Kenny to take over the Ireland job in 2020 are already damning Mick McCarthy as an interim manager, a caretaker gaffer, and - because the players have learned his time of departure at his time of his arrival - a leader who has had his authority undermined before a ball has even been kicked.

One of Robbie Keane’s first tasks as an assistant to Mick McCarthy will be to try to help the manager win back Declan Rice to the Irish fold.

We should probably be grateful that there was a plan at all. John Delaney, a man who lurches between self-promotion and self-preservation, is hardly the obvious choice to plot a path to redemption for Ireland. With some organisations, silence persuades you there is some grand scheming going on behind closed doors. With the FAI, the suspicion is sometimes the opposite.

The decision to part company with Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane was made eight days ago, FAI chief executive John Delaney confirmed yesterday.

Two years ago as Dundalk lifted the third of the four league titles they would win under Stephen Kenny, fans raised a banner as a backdrop to the celebrations with lyrics from the Oasis classic ‘Live Forever’.

SLICK.

FAI chiefs are closing in on an innovative agreement with Mick McCarthy and Stephen Kenny for BOTH to manage the Republic of Ireland over the next three years.

Dundalk manager Stephen Kenny says the suggestion he wouldn’t get the respect of the Republic of Ireland dressing room is “insulting”.

Taking to Twitter, the Dublin club's board threw their support behind the Dundalk boss, who alongside Mick McCarthy is among the favourites to take over from Martin O'Neill.

The FAI will hold formal talks in the coming days with Mick McCarthy who remains the odds-on favourite to reprise his role as Ireland manager.

Martin O’Neill wasn’t the only one to rein in his enthusiasm when the Nations League was thrust upon us this year but he paid a bigger price for his indifference to it than most.

Keith Andrews believes Mick McCarthy is the right man to take over from Martin O’Neill as Ireland manager.

"If you offered me the job of managing Real Madrid or Barcelona or Ireland, I would choose to manage Ireland, because it's the greatest honour you can have as an Irishman."

Having scaled the highs of Lille, and Long versus the Germans, and having sunk to the lows of Denmark and a tepid Nations League campaign, the O’Neill-Keane era has come to an end “by mutual agreement”.

Roy Keane always insisted that he would never become a television pundit.

There was a brief break from the script during the announcement of a joint-bid by the FAI and IFA for the 2023 U21 Euros hosting when the North’s chief executive touched on the importance of full houses to associations.

With Martin O’Neill’s exit and a new appointment apparently imminent as Ireland manager, it looks as if the FAI are hoping for a quick-fix to boost chances of qualifying for the Euro 2020 finals which will be part-hosted in Dublin, says Liam Brady.

In what would make for an unusually quick running of the succession stakes, the FAI intend to have a new Ireland manager installed in time for the Euro 2020 draw in Dublin on Sunday week, December 2.

If he turned on the telly in the team hotel ahead of the Republic of Ireland’s friendly against Northern Ireland last Thursday, Séamus Coleman might have taken inspiration from watching Theresa May defend her Brexit deal in the House of Commons.

Dundalk manager Stephen Kenny insists that he is not “playing games” when he says that Pat Hoban is an injury doubt for Sunday’s FAI Cup final against Cork City.

Dundalk manager Stephen Kenny says they can't afford to dwell on title rivals Cork City - and must instead focus on their own results.

Dundalk FC manager Stephen Kenny has called on his side to carry their league form into Europe when they take on Levadia Tallinn in their Europa League first qualifying round first leg tie this evening (kick-off 5pm Irish time).

The relationship between rival managers John Caulfield and Stephen Kenny has been markedly strained this year, deteriorating rapidly as the season progressed.

Stephen Kenny hasn’t had too many disappointments in his time as Dundalk manager but perhaps top of the list is last year’s FAI Cup final defeat to Cork City.

Back when Stephen Kenny last faced Rosenborg in the Champions League as manager of Bohemians in 2003, the Norwegians were the team most League of Ireland sides wanted to emulate.

John Caulfield has described Stephen Kenny’s complaints about the lack of penalties awarded to his Dundalk side as “an astonishing attack” on match officials in the SSE Airtricity League.

One defeat doesn’t define Dundalk’s remarkable season even if, with so much at stake, last night’s 2-1 loss to Maccabi Tel Aviv is bound to leave Stephen Kenny and his players with an acute sense of deflation at the end of their European dream.

Barely an hour after his team created yet more Irish football history by beating Maccabi Tel Aviv 1-0 in Group D of the Europa League in Tallaght on Thursday night, manager Stephen Kenny talked about how all at Dundalk remain “driven” in the quest to make this “an incredibly special season” for the club.

Stephen Kenny hailed 2015 as “an epic season” for Dundalk after his back-to-back champions did the double by beating Cork City 1-0 in the FAI Cup final yesterday.

Dundalk 0 BATE Borisov 0 (BATE Borisov win 2-1 on aggregate): Raging anticipation gave way to crushing anti-climax in Oriel Park last night as Dundalk failed to get the one goal required to keep them in the Champions League.

League champions and league leaders Dundalk are accustomed to having it almost all their own way in the domestic game, their potent mix of pace, fluent passing and goal-power a testament not just to the exceptional quality of players like Richie Towell and Daryl Horgan but also to manager Stephen Kenny’s commitment to playing football as it should be played.

The Dundalk Democrat has a 12-page pull-out on the game which they’re calling the biggest at Oriel Park since the fabled European Cup tie with Celtic in 1979.