What happened when Ireland's WNT first met France in 1973?

Analysis: Footage from that October day in Parc de Princes is so far the earliest surviving footage of Ireland's first women's national football team

By Helena Byrne, British Library

Tonight the Republic of Ireland's women's national team take on France in Metz in their first of six 2025 UEFA Women's European Championship League A qualifiers. Saint-Smyphorien Stadium in Metz will be the 11th venue at which the two teams have gone head-to-head and the 12th match between France and Ireland's WNT. It will also be just over fifty years since the teams first met at Parc de Princes in Paris, in October 1973.

Back then, 16 trailblazing footballers travelled to France and paved the way for players like Katie McCabe, Izzy Atkinson and Denise O'Sullivan to do what they do best. 1973 was also the year Ireland's WNT made history and their official international debut, on 17 May against Wales, with Dundalk's Paula Gorham scoring a hat-trick to win the match 3-2. The Republic of Ireland's women’s national team had only been formed earlier that year with the establishment of the Women's Football Association of Ireland, then named the Ladies Football Association of Ireland. It would be another decade before the Irish women made their competitive debut in 1982.

In that year they played four international matches, one at home and three away. Although women’s football was recognised by UEFA in 1971 and all members were mandated to take control of governing the sport, it was really up to those involved in the day-to-day running of women’s football to make international matches happen. They organised friendly international fixtures through the relationships built at club level.

With this in mind it is not surprising that in their inaugural