Irish Sports by Paulina Ricová and Natália Paulenová (IV.KA)

Equestrian activities, particularly show jumping and horse racing, are another key sport. Ireland has the best grass on the planet, and consequently some of the best horse flesh on the globe. Every town has its equestrian centers, and a goodly percentage of farms house a few horses as well as the more mundane cows and sheep.

Betting shops, called bookmakers, are all over the place. Traditional fox hunts are still commonplace and in the depths of winter when the major tracks shut down, a circuit of point-to-point races travels from town to town. Irish horse racing, like British, involves lots of jumps and miles of running. A typical race might last 10 or more minutes. Get out on a freezing January day and watch the horses splash through the slop and you'll know what it feels like to be a real Irish person: wet, cold, fortified with drink and lots of companionable talk, and surprisingly happy. There's a nice commercial site with links to everything concerning Irish horses. 

Golf. There are over 300 golf courses scattered everywhere in Ireland. Each attracts a membership of many hundreds, and visitors are usually welcome to play a few rounds during the warmer months. The standard of greens and fairway maintenance is extremely high and most of the courses earn the coveted "Championship" designation. The major Irish tournament on the international circuit is the Murphy's Irish Open, which attracts thousands of enthusiasts to watch the pros do their thing. There are dozens of individual golf courses on line. Golfing Ireland is a site that covers the whole of the Irish golf scene.

Rugby. Ireland enthusiastically supports amateur rugby, and international play with the other great rugby superpowers - notably South Africa and New Zealand - is followed by large numbers of Irish people. There is again a system of amateur clubs, but these are centered on a few counties such as Kerry and Dublin. For the most part, Rugby is a telly sport, but an exciting and bone crunching one.

Motor rally, hillwalking, and cycling are the other common sports. Every town in Ireland has local clubs involved in these sports. In early July 1998, the Tour De France, the second largest sporting event in the world after the Olympics, began in Ireland. In three dIn sum, there's plenty for the sports minded to enjoy in Ireland. And Satellite TV and the Web make it possible to keep tabs on some favorite overseas team.

Gaelic Football. It would be safe to say that Gaelic Football is the most popular sport in Ireland, with Hurling not far behind. It’s a traditional game in Ireland and could be described as being a cross between soccer and rugby with similarities to Australian Rules. 

Boxing . Irish people are known as the Fighting Irish and many of men became world champion boxers and became a house hold name. Boxing clubs in Ireland have always been popular for many years and still is producing some great talented boxers who go onto compete around the globe. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Gaelic football is the most popular sport in Ireland in terms of match attendance and community involvement, and represents 34% of total sports attendances at events in Ireland and abroad, followed by hurling at 23%, soccer at 16% and rugby at 8%, and Initiative's ViewerTrack study measuring 2005 sports audiences showed the sport's highest-profile match, the All-Ireland Football Final, to be the most watched event of the nation's sporting year. Swimming, golf, aerobics, soccer, cycling, 

Gaelic football and billiards/snooker are the sporting activities with the highest levels of playing participation. 

Many other sports are also played and followed, particularly rugby league, horse racing but also show jumping, greyhound,racing, boxing, baseball, basketball,cricket, fishing, handball, motorsport, tennis, kendo, and hockey. In Ireland many sports, such as boxing, hockey, rowing, cricket, rugby union, Gaelic football and hurling, are organised in an all-island basis, with a single team representing Ireland in international competitions. Other sports, such as Association Football, have separate organising bodies in Northern Ireland and theRepublic of Ireland. At the Olympics, a person from Northern Ireland can choose to represent either Ireland or Britain.