Deposited Collections

Institutional History

The core of Irish support for soccer traditionally lay in Ulster. The correlation between soccer, often regarded as the ‘garrison game’, and British rule in Ireland encouraged those with nationalist outlooks to participate in the Irish games of Gaelic football and hurling. Nonetheless, soccer was played, to a degree, outside of Ulster, and this resulted in the establishment of the Leinster Football Association in 1898, as an affiliate of the Irish Football Association (founded 1880). Its primary purpose was to foster soccer in the province of Leinster.

However, the IFA was seen by many southern soccer enthusiasts as doing very little to promote the game throughout the country, but instead focusing its attention on the professional clubs in Ulster. By 1921 all but two of the clubs in the Irish League were based in Ulster.

The political situation in Ireland throughout the 1910s and 1920s indubitably exacerbated tensions between northern and southern clubs and supporters. The April 1921 Irish Cup semi-final replay between Shelbourne F.C. (based in Dublin) and Glenavon F.C. (based in Lurgan, county Armagh) was due to be played in Dublin. The IFA however moved the match location to Belfast amid security fears. Southern players and supporters were dismayed at this decision, and it led to the establishment of the Football Association of Ireland in September 1921. The LFA affiliated with the new organisation.

In its early years, Leinster Football Association committee meetings were held at various rented premises in Dublin, notably Molesworth Hall and 56 Middle Abbey Street. However, the need for permanent premises was clear, and in 1929 the association purchased 43 Parnell Square, Dublin, where it would remain until 2009 and its move to the National Sports Campus in Abbotstown.

The LFA remains the governing body for the Leinster Senior Cup competition, which was first played during the 1892–3 season. It is also charged with the organisation and administration of soccer throughout Leinster

Archival History

These archives were transferred from the premises at Parnell Square, Dublin and deposited in UCD Archives in May 2009.

Scope and Content

Junior League: minutes and proceedings from various committees (including council, emergency, protest and appeal, and rough play) and annual general meetings; attendance book of committee members.

Senior League: minutes and proceedings from various committees, (including council, emergency, finance, management, leagues, and executive).

Senior League: bound volumes containing minutes of all Senior League committee meetings (1993–2004).

Senior League: committee members attendance book.

Indices of Senior League players; lists of teams affiliated with the LFA.

Senior League: suspensions and disciplinary actions.

Material relating to the centenary celebrations of the LFA.

Administrative material: match ledgers; cash books and petty cash books.

• Access: Available by appointment to holders of a UCD Archives reader's ticket. Produced for consultation in digital form.
• Language: English
• Finding aid: Descriptive catalogue