Qualla: Páirc Uí Chaoimh

Páirc Uí Chaoimh: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Charlesolivercork, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cork people call it The Park. Páirc Uí Chaoimh, the field of O'Keeffe, named for Pádraig Ó Caoimh - the long-serving General Secretary of the Gaelic Athletic Association from 1929 to 1964, the Cork man who built the modern administrative GAA from a Dublin office. The stadium that bears his name sits on the south bank of the River Lee, in the Ballintemple district between Mahon and the city centre. Hurlers in red Cork jerseys come here on summer Sundays to face the men of Tipperary, Limerick, Clare and the great Kilkenny side, and the noise from a Munster final crowd rolls across the river like weather. Bruce Springsteen has played here twice. So has Ed Sheeran. The stadium since February 2024 carries the full title SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh - a sponsorship that locals have absorbed with mixed feelings, the way locals everywhere absorb the renaming of beloved places.

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Image: Charlesolivercork | CC BY-SA 4.0

Páirc Uí Chaoimh: Before the Park

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Flickr member Charlie cravero, CC BY 2.0. The land has been used for sport since before the Gaelic Athletic Association even existed. By the late 1890s the Cork County Board enclosed part of the site for Gaelic games; the original stadium opened in 1898, and in 1904 the larger Cork Athletic Grounds opened a short distanc...

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Image: Flickr member Charlie cravero | CC BY 2.0

Páirc Uí Chaoimh: The 1976 Opening and the Festival That Saved It

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dickenpussi, CC BY-SA 4.0. The new stadium opened in 1976 with a hurling match between Cork and Kilkenny followed by a football match between Cork and Kerry - the great Munster derbies that have defined Cork sport for a century. Initial capacity was 50,288. The first-stage cost was 1.7 million pounds, up f...

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Image: Dickenpussi | CC BY-SA 4.0

Páirc Uí Chaoimh: The Eighty-Six Million Rebuild

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JOMS58, CC BY-SA 4.0. By the 2010s the old Park was tired. Safety regulations had progressively cut its capacity from 50,000 down to 32,550. Wooden bench seats, replaced in 2005 by ill-fitting bucket seats, had become a Cork joke - the seat backs had to be cut off because nobody fit in them properly. ...

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Image: JOMS58 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Páirc Uí Chaoimh: Liam Miller and the First Soccer Match

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Charlesolivercork, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 25 September 2018, for the first time in its history, Páirc Uí Chaoimh hosted association football. The occasion was a benefit match for Liam Miller, a Cork-born Irish international footballer who had played for Celtic and Manchester United, and who had died of pancreatic canc...

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Image: Charlesolivercork | CC BY-SA 4.0

Páirc Uí Chaoimh: Rugby Records and the Sheeran Curse

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alanpbarry, CC BY-SA 4.0. Páirc Uí Chaoimh hosted its first rugby match on 10 November 2022, when Munster played the touring South Africans before 41,400 spectators - the largest crowd ever to attend a rugby match in the province of Munster. On 3 February 2024, Munster beat New Zealand's Crusaders 21-19 a...

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Image: Alanpbarry | CC BY-SA 4.0