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The
core of Irish support for soccer traditionally lay in Ulster. The
correlation between soccer, often regarded as the ‘garrison game’,
and British rule in Ireland encouraged those with nationalist outlooks
to participate in the Irish games of Gaelic football and hurling.
Nonetheless, soccer was played, to a degree, outside of Ulster, and this
resulted in the establishment of the Leinster Football Association in
1898, as an affiliate of the Irish Football Association (founded 1880).
Its primary purpose was to foster soccer in the province of Leinster.
However,
the IFA was seen by many southern soccer enthusiasts as doing very
little to promote the game throughout the country, but instead focusing
its attention on the professional clubs in Ulster. By 1921 all but two
of the clubs in the Irish League were based in Ulster.
The
political situation in Ireland throughout the 1910s and 1920s
indubitably exacerbated tensions between northern and southern clubs and
supporters. The April 1921 Irish Cup semi-final replay between
Shelbourne F.C. (based in Dublin) and Glenavon F.C. (based in Lurgan,
county Armagh) was due to be played in Dublin. The IFA however moved the
match location to Belfast amid security fears. Southern players and
supporters were dismayed at this decision, and it led to the
establishment of the Football Association of Ireland in September 1921.
The LFA affiliated with the new organisation.
In
its early years, Leinster Football Association committee meetings were
held at various rented premises in Dublin, notably Molesworth Hall and
56 Middle Abbey Street. However, the need for permanent premises was
clear, and in 1929 the association purchased 43 Parnell Square, Dublin,
where it would remain until 2009 and its move to the National Sports
Campus in Abbotstown.
The
LFA remains the governing body for the Leinster Senior Cup competition,
which was first played during the 1892–3 season. It is also charged
with the organisation and administration of soccer throughout Leinster
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