College football in Ireland
Updated: Wikipedia source
College football in Ireland began initially in 1988 as part of a promotional campaign to mark the Dublin millennium celebrations. Initially known as the Emerald Isle Classic, it was the "first major" NCAA-sanctioned American college football game played in Europe. The first games were played, at Lansdowne Road in Dublin, in 1988 and 1989. The event was first proposed and arranged by Aidan J. Prendergast and Jim O'Brien. Prendergast, who was a former president of the Irish American Football Association conceived the idea of bringing a major NCAA game to Ireland in the mid-1980s and started pitching the idea on both sides of the Atlantic. Prendergast promoted both the 1988 and 1989 games. Also previously known as the Shamrock Classic, from 2016 the event was marketed as the Aer Lingus College Football Classic.