On the Eastern edge of the city of Dublin, right next to the River Dodder, is the Shelbourne Park Greyhound Stadium. It is located in what was traditionally the dockland area of the Ringsend superb of the Irish capital and opened its doors for the first time in 1927. Despite being just a fifteen minute walk from the city centre of Dublin, you can get a free coach from Burgh Quay every Saturday when there\u2019s racing on.<\/p>\n
Sufficed to say, for a city that fames itself on good craic, tasty Guinness and being welcoming to people from all backgrounds, you\u2019re in for a cracking night\u2019s entertainment if you head to Shelbourne Park. It\u2019s also certain to be something slightly different from the usual fare you\u2019d get in Dublin! A real joy is that if you don\u2019t know the city you can have a bit of an explore before heading off to the stadium with most racing taking place in the evening.
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Shelbourne Park<\/p> \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/p>\n
There\u2019s a real array of choices for which day you\u2019ll be able to head and watch racing at Shelbourne Park. Obviously, the biggest nights come at the weekend with Friday and Saturday nights extremely popular. If you\u2019re not really a \u2018head out on the weekend\u2019 sort of person, though, you don\u2019t need to worry. There\u2019s also racing here on Tuesdays and Thursdays!<\/p>\n
Timing wise, it\u2019s all about the evening. On Thursdays and Fridays, the doors to the stadium open at 6.30pm. That\u2019ll give you an hour and a half to have a drink and a bite to eat, if you fancy it, before the first race gets underway at 8pm. On Saturdays, everything shifts slightly earlier, so you can enter from 6pm and the first race starts at 7.40pm. Tuesdays aren\u2019t actually a regular occurrence and the times change accordingly, so you\u2019re best getting in touch with Shelbourne Park directly before heading down there.<\/p>\n
Jim Clarke, Paddy O\u2019Donoghue, Patsy McAlinden and Jerry Collins came together in the early part of the 1920s with a plan to open a greyhound stadium in Dublin. They\u2019d witnessed the success of Celtic Park in Belfast and believed that the sport would thrive in the land of the Liffey. They found a location in the dockland area of the city and on the 14th of May 1927 their dream became a reality when Shelbourne Park opened its doors for the first time. Rather impressively for a new racing location, the stadium boasted four in-house trainers back then in Billy Donoghue, Ben Scally, Mick Horan and Paddy Quigley.<\/p>\n
In 1928, the stadium began hosting the Easter Cup \u2013 a competition that commemorated the Easter Rising that took place in Dublin in 1916. Between 1928 and 1931, the Irish Greyhound Derby had been held at Harold\u2019s Cross Stadium, but in 1932, it made the move to Shelbourne Park and was won for the first time there by Guideless Joe \u2013 a dog trained by Mick Horan. From then on the Derby alternated its location between Shelbourne and Harold\u2019s Cross, as did another prestigious competition called the Oaks.<\/p>\n
By the 1960s, there was a real threat to the stadium\u2019s very existence. Plans to redevelop it into something different were gathering pace. The Irish Greyhound Board, officially known as the ‘Bord na gCon’, had installed a brand new totalisator system there in 1960 and in 1968 they decided to end speculation about the stadium\u2019s future by buying it outright. They ploughed \u00a3240,000 into it and, as a result,the Irish Derby moved there permanently. It had always been one of Ireland\u2019s best greyhound stadiums, but when Celtic Park was closed in 1983, Shelbourne Park officially became the premier track on the Emerald Isle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On the Eastern edge of the city of Dublin, right next to the River Dodder, is the Shelbourne Park Greyhound Stadium. It is located in what was traditionally the dockland area of the Ringsend superb of the Irish capital and opened its doors for the first time in 1927. Despite being just a fifteen minute … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":84,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"page_type":[5],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2024-05-05 19:06:27","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"page_type"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irishbettingsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/426"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irishbettingsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irishbettingsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irishbettingsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irishbettingsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.irishbettingsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428,"href":"https:\/\/www.irishbettingsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/426\/revisions\/428"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irishbettingsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/84"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irishbettingsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"page_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irishbettingsites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/page_type?post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}