Rugby union in Ireland
is a popular team sport on the island of Ireland, organised on an all-Ireland basis, including players and teams from both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Its governing body, the Irish Rugby Football Union, was founded in 1875, making it the third oldest rugby union in the world after the RFU and the SRU, which were both founded in 1871.
The Ireland national team is currently second in the World Rugby Rankings, and has won the Six Nations Championship fifteen times, most recently in 2024, including four Grand Slams, the most recent being in 2023. Ireland has appeared at every men's Rugby World Cup but never advanced beyond the quarter-final.
Ireland has four professional teams, organised by the four provincial unions that make up the IRFU, Leinster, Munster, Ulster and Connacht, who compete in the United Rugby Championship, the European Rugby Champions Cup and the EPCR Challenge Cup.
Leinster are the most recent Irish team to win the URC in 2024–25, and are the most successful side historically. Irish provinces have had considerable success in European competitions, with seven European Rugby Champions Cups and one Challenge Cup win.
At the local level, fifty club sides compete in the five divisions of the All-Ireland League, of which Cork Constitution are the current champions.
The Ireland women's rugby union team compete in the Women's Six Nations, WXV and the women's Rugby World Cup, while women's teams from Ireland compete in the IRFU Women's Interprovincial Series and the cross-border Celtic Challenge competition with sides from Scotland and Wales.
Governing body
The Irish Rugby Football union was formed in 1879, after the merger of the Irish Football Union, which controlled rugby in Leinster, Munster and parts of Ulster, and the Northern Football Union of Ireland, which controlled in the game in the Belfast area. As part of this amalgamation, the IRFU established three provincial branches to run the game in Leinster, Munster and Ulster; a fourth branch was founded for Connacht in 1885. The IRFU was a founding member of the International Rugby Board in 1986. Despite the partition of Ireland in 1921, the IRFU continues to run the game on an all-island basis.International rugby
The Ireland national team represents the whole Island of Ireland, selecting players from both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Its first international match was a 7-0 defeat by England in 1875.Since 1995 the Ireland national team has been fully professional. They play their home games at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship, the four-yearly Rugby World Cup, and various mid-year and autumn international matches.
The national team has won several Triple Crowns and three Grand Slams and is able to play at a competitive level with the world's rugby giants, having beaten all including New Zealand in the last five years.
Development teams
As with all top-tier rugby nations, and many lower-tier countries, Ireland field an "A" national side, a second-level national selection primarily intended to develop younger talent for possible future duty on the senior national team. Since February 2010, the IRFU have rebranded the A side as Ireland Wolfhounds. The Wolfhounds generally play "A" teams of the other major European powers and senior sides of lower-tier nations. Ireland also field an occasional development team, Emerging Ireland, used to try out promising young players. The Ireland national under-20 rugby union team competes in the annual Six Nations Under 20s Championship and World Rugby U20 Championship tournaments. The Ireland national schoolboy rugby union team competes in the Rugby Europe Under-18 Championship.IQ Rugby is a development programme to identify potential Ireland players from the Irish diaspora.
Ireland Sevens
The Ireland national rugby sevens team competed in the World Rugby Sevens Series, the Rugby World Cup Sevens and at the Summer Olympics. Their highest ever finish in the SVNS was second 2023–24 SVNS league. They have made the semifinals of the Rugby World Cup Sevens twice, once in 1993 and in 2022, coming in third place in the latter. Their highest finish at the Summer Olympics was 6th at the 2024 Summer Olympics. In May 2025 the IRFU dismantled the programme at the end of the 2024/25 season, insisting the move was part of "a broader strategic effort to ensure the IRFU's long-term financial sustainability." This decision was met with widespread criticism.Ireland Women
The Irish Women's Rugby Football Union was founded in 1991, and the Ireland women's national rugby union team made their international debut in 1993. The IWRFU became affiliated to the IRFU in 2001, and was incorporated into the IRFU in 2008. The Ireland women's team have competed in the Women's Rugby World Cup since its second edition in 1994, and the Women's Six Nations Championship since 1996. Ireland hosted the 2017 Women's Rugby World Cup, and lost to Wales 17–27 in the eighth place play off.Provincial rugby
The four branches of the IRFU each organise a provincial team: Leinster, based at the RDS Arena in Dublin; Munster, based at Thomond Park in Limerick; Ulster, based at Ravenhill in Belfast; and Connacht, based at the Sportsgrounds in Galway. In the amateur era, they were representative teams, selected from the best club players in the province, and competed in the annual IRFU Interprovincial Championship, as well as playing against international touring teams. After rugby union was declared open to professionalism in 1995, they were developed into professional teams.Today, they compete in the United Rugby Championship alongside teams from Scotland, Wales, Italy and South Africa, and the European Rugby Champions Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup, which also include teams from France and England. All four provinces have been champions of the URC, Leinster nine times, most recently in 2025; Munster four times, most recently in 2023; Ulster once in 2006; and Connacht once in 2016. Leinster have won the Champions Cup four times, most recently in 2018; Munster twice, most recently in 2008; and Ulster once in 1999. Leinster have won the Challenge Cup once, in 2012.
To encourage the development of Irish talent, the provinces are allowed only three non-Irish-qualified players in their squads. Each province has an academy programme to develop young players from local schools and clubs to professional level. Regular internationals are signed on central contracts to the IRFU, meaning that they, and not the provinces, control when the players play and when they rest.
Each province also has a women's team which competes in the annual IRFU Women's Interprovincial Series. Irish women's teams compete in the Celtic Challenge tournament alongside teams from Scotland and Wales. In the first year, 2023, Ireland entered a Combined Provinces team. In the 2024 tournament, they entered two teams, the Wolfhounds, a combined Ulster-Leinster team, and the Clovers, a combined Munster-Connacht team.
Club rugby
Since 1990, the top club sides in Ireland have competed in the All-Ireland League. It originally featured nineteen clubs in two divisions, and currently has fifty clubs in five divisions, 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B and 2C, with promotion and relegation between them. The bottom team in Division 2C is relegated to their province's Junior League. Playoffs are held between the winners of the four provincial Junior Leagues to decide who will replace them. The Bateman Cup is played for annually by the winners of the provincial Senior Cups. The Women's All-Ireland League was founded in 1992 has one division containing nine clubs. The provincial branches each organise a pyramid of league and cup competitions for both men's and women's teams.Schools rugby
Each province has a senior schools' tournament: the Leinster Schools Rugby Senior Cup; the Munster Schools Rugby Senior Cup; the Ulster Schools' Cup; and the Connacht Schools Rugby Senior Cup; and an under-15 tournament: the Leinster Schools Junior Cup; the Munster Schools Junior Cup; the Ulster Medallion Shield; and the Connacht Schools Junior Cup.Demographics
Playing numbers
The last report on the number of players playing rugby union conducted by World Rugby in 2019 showed 79,000 registered players and an overall total of 196,000, incorporating women’ players, schools, sevens etc.Stadiums and attendance
The professional era and the advent of the competitions now known as United Rugby Championship and the European Rugby Champions Cup have seen rugby union become a major spectator sport in Ireland. European Cup games are generally well supported in all the provinces, with sellouts the norm and massive crowds in Dublin's Lansdowne Road for quarterfinal and semifinal matches. Ulster, Munster and Leinster have all won the Heineken Cup. In the past Ulster led the then-Celtic League attendances for 3 years in the row and Connacht, Munster and Leinster's crowds have grown year on year and with the later two setting new world records for province/club attendance.Munster extensively renovated and expanded their traditional home of Thomond Park in a project that was completed in 2008. The Royal Dublin Society expanded their RDS Arena in the same time period, which prompted Leinster to make it their primary home while they were planning to expand their own traditional ground at Donnybrook. After the Donnybrook plans fell through, Leinster chose to remain at the RDS and in 2023 Leinster embarked on renovation plans to increase the capacity of the arena. Connacht completed ground expansion and renovation works in time for the 2011/2012 season with the construction of the Clan Terrace. And in 2014, Ulster completed the complete reconstruction of Ravenhill Stadium into a modern 18,000 capacity stadium. Munster are currently in the process of construing a new stand at their secondary home of Musgrave Park.
Before the opening of Aviva Stadium, Ireland international games sold out against all but the weakest opposition, and with the team playing at Croke Park during the reconstruction of Lansdowne Road, attendances regularly topped 80,000. However, the Aviva saw disappointing attendance during its first Tests in 2010, with no match selling out; media reports indicated that this was largely due to an IRFU ticketing strategy that made little sense in an uncertain economy. More recent Tests have seen crowds much closer to capacity, including sellouts or near-sellouts for all of Ireland's Six Nations home fixtures.