Aviva Stadium
One 51,711-seat bowl jointly owned by rugby and football — two governing bodies, one ground, no separate home for either.
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Built on the site of the demolished Lansdowne Road Stadium, Aviva opened in May 2010 as Ireland's first UEFA Category 4 venue and has since hosted the UEFA Europa League final twice — 2011 and 2024. Unusually, the IRFU and the FAI hold it through an equal joint venture with a 60-year lease, making the scheduling calendar a genuine negotiation between rival codes.
What to look for
- Lansdowne Road railway station sitting immediately beside the ground — the source of the stadium's unusually direct rail access
- The fully enclosed all-seated bowl of 51,711 seats, built on the footprint of the old Lansdowne Road Stadium after it was demolished in 2007
- The 50:50 IRFU/FAI joint venture arrangement — at the end of the 60-year lease the stadium reverts to the exclusive ownership of the IRFU, an unusual governance structure for a shared national ground
Take the DART to Lansdowne Road station — the platform exits within a short walk of the turnstiles.
Aviva Stadium is one of 35 sights worth the detour in Dublin, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Dublin pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Dublin
- Dublin CastleThe river that gave Dublin its name still flows beneath your feet — and the building above it ran Ireland for 750 years.
- Croke ParkThe fourth-largest stadium in Europe holds 82,300 people — almost entirely for sports most of the world has never watched.
- National Library of IrelandIreland's paper memory — manuscripts, photographs, and newspapers free to open on the spot.
- St Patrick's CathedralIreland's national cathedral has never had a bishop — that role belongs to the rival church 400 metres up the road.
- Spire of DublinA 120-metre stainless-steel pin planted on the exact spot where an IRA bomb in 1966 — and a controlled demolition six days later — erased Nelson's Pillar.
- Leinster HouseA private ducal palace built on Dublin's wrong side of town in 1745 — the gamble paid off, and now it is Ireland's parliament.