Dalymount Park, situated in Phisboro just west of Dublin City Center, is home to Bohemians FC today with a capacity of just over 12,000 people. The stadium was built in 1901 and the first game ever held there took place in September 1901 between Bohemians and Shelbourne. Known affectionately by the Irish soccer fans as simply Dalyer, the days are now numbered for this historic stadium.Today the stadium is still being used on a regular basis as the home of Bohemians.

Historically Dalymount Park was the home of Irish Soccer with major home international matches being played there until the 1984 when Ireland played Italy. An amazing 40,000 people turned up to see the game. Only 20,000 people were allowed in that night to see the game. The last time Dalymount was used for a senior international match of any description was in 1990 when Ireland played Morocco.Unfortunately from the 1940s until recent times, no development had taken place at the stadium and the stadium with its old wooden stands fell into dilapidation. In more recent times, the main stand has been replaced with a modern stand, but the rest of the stadium is a throw back to history.

In recent times it has become inevitable that Bohemians were going to leave Dalymount as the price or land in Dublin shot up. A recent development has been the sale of the old stadium for e50m which will also include the building of a 10,000 all seated stadium in the Castleknock area of Dublin. 105 years of sporting history comes to an end.

Ronan Menton is the webmaster for a number of travel related websites and has been for some time in Ireland, associated with search engine optimisation in the Irish travel industry. He spends two months a year in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and now sees it as his second home. Among the many sites he is currently working on are the following: hotels in Liverpool and hotels in Bath.

By: Ronan Menton