How Dundalk Ladies helped set up the Women's Football Association

Analysis: The match between Dundalk Ladies and Corinthians Nomads was part of the battle for recognition of women's soccer as an official sport

By Helena Byrne, British Library

For the first time in over three decades, the Republic of Ireland Women's National Team (WNT) will take on England, when Ireland host the Lionesses at Dublin's Aviva Stadium in their second Euro 2025 qualifier tonight. The teams first faced each other in 1978, and last met in 1987, but their relationship goes back much further.

From the mid 1960s, women’s football started to become very popular. In the Republic of Ireland the indoor football leagues that started in Dundalk and Drogheda in 1966 actively encouraged female teams to participate, with leagues that catered for women and men of all ages and abilities, springing up all over the country. These leagues were the springboard for outdoor women’s soccer and Gaelic football teams.

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From RTÉ Archives, a 1967 Newsbeat report on the rise of women playing soccer in Waterford

Established in 1968 by Kevin and Nan Gaynor, Dundalk Ladies was one of these teams. Kevin was heavily involved with the men's League of Ireland team, Dundalk F.C. One of the ways he helped to generate funding as part of the floodlight committee was to organise a women’s football league. The women's matches were played in the local Oriel Park stadium before the scheduled League of Ireland matches, and the players would then collect money from the crowd to go towards the