'We always had Paris' - Where Ireland really kicked off

There's a nice symmetry to the Olympics returning to Paris for the first time in 100 years - not least for Irish soccer.

Emerging from the fractious early 1920s with the running of the game on the island split in two between the Northern IFA and the newly christened FAI FS (Football Association of Ireland Free State), the 1924 Olympic Games in the French capital proved to be the Republic of Ireland's entry onto the world's stage.

And yet until earlier this summer, all four matches played by a fabled squad of 16 players that year were no longer fully recognised as official senior internationals and their exploits had faded into the mists of time.

Before setting out for Paris ahead of this year's Olympics, I began exploring the story behind the Irish team that played at that 1924 edition in a short YouTube documentary you can watch above and it coincided with it being the year that the mist evaporated.

Following research conducted by the 1924 Centenary Committee - a group made up of journalists Tadhg Carey and Paul Lennon, MEP Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, as well as historian Gerry Farrell and National Teams' Supporter Liaison Officer Gary Spain - proposals were put to the FAI to ensure that the team from 100 years ago would be re-added to the start of the Irish senior team's all-time record.

The association formally approved those proposals in May and now forevermore, fixtures against Bulgaria and the Netherlands at the 1924 Paris Games as well as subsequent friendlies versus Estonia and the USA make up the first four entries in the official list of matches played by the Boys in Green.

The 1924 football team was honoured through their descendants who were invited to the Castleknock Hotel on 27 May - where two of them shared with me what