When Croke Park opened its gates to women’s soccer

Today is International Women’s Day and we have just commemorated 100 years of enfranchisement for some women, at least. Yet, some of the most fascinating breakthroughs for women in social history happened before that, in the sporting arena.

One of the very first blows for women’s sport in Ireland was struck in 1896, when international women’s soccer came to the City and Suburban Grounds at Jones’s Road, Dublin: Croke Park occupies the site these days.