70 million squid over budget ... so far. It'll be a big improvement though.

Very beautiful indeed - grace elegance and class.

A wonderful monument to the great great success of the Irish Republic today.

Looks great can't wait to see the 6 Nations being played there for the first time

Croke Park, Lansdowne Road, Titanic Quarter - Might make a plausible Scottish Irish Bid for the Euros (we have to qualify some way!) yet!

The Economist recently rated the Irish Republic was the greatest place to live on planet earth.

This stadium fits that rating.

"The Economist recently rated the Irish Republic was the greatest place to live on planet earth."

The Economist must have been smoking the funny fags. :)

if someone can show these to the numptys at the SIB? Lovely looking stadium in the centre of town -equals gasps of admiration and cries of cant wait.

pictures of a square box in the arsehole of nowhere equals just crying.

there is a reason they stuck the prison out there you know...

TOT

you are spot on the money!!!

Nothing can beat the build up to a big game in a city centre easily accessable to the stadium. No one wants to go to a field near to the second "city" of Lisburn. Can it really be too late to stop the National Stadium going out of town?

It’s okay lads! In a UI the national stadium will be in the city centre! ;-)

Brilliant. Looks exactly like a great big big jellyfish.

Did they get the inspiration from the bunch of spineless drifters that graced the playing surface last Wednesday?

It looks like they could run quite an entertaining rollercoaster along the rim.

Speaking of which, we could do with a few rollercoasters...

Perhaps when it is finished we will see a united Irish team playing there, and not just in rugby. In one small island it is absurd that we have two teams and neither of them can qualify (at the moment) for major championships. There is strength in unity, after all! But then again, I suppose hell will freeze over first...politics for some reason has created two soccer teams, while leaving rugby, cricket, etc., etc., untouched...why? Is it because soccer is more of a 'working class' sport? Do the 'working classes' feel partition more viscerally for some reason?

Perhaps when it is finished we will see a united Irish team playing there, and not just in rugby. In one small island it is absurd that we have two teams and neither of them can qualify (at the moment) for major championships. There is strength in unity, after all! But then again, I suppose hell will freeze over first...politics for some reason has created two soccer teams, while leaving rugby, cricket, etc., etc., untouched...why? Is it because soccer is more of a 'working class' sport? Do the 'working classes' feel partition more viscerally for some reason?

Great news, but i still think the 50,000 capacity is a bit on the small side.

60,000 would have been ideal considering the support for both Rugby & Soccer

ASS it has nothing to do with class. The history is that the FAIFS (forerunner to FAI) broke away from the IFA because they said it was too Belfast-centric, basically throwing a big strop because they wouldn't move the cup finals to Dublin.

Up until the 50s both teams played as Ireland/Eire until FIFA determined the IFA had to stick to NI and the FAI to the Republic.

Now the all-island team argument has been done to death a million times here and on Our Wee Country, so can we get back on topic? (I can't comment because I can't visit the site of the pictures from work)

As much as I welcome the stadium, I think the design is ugly and that we should have stuck with the Bertie Bowl.

Disappointing small stadium tickets already virtually unobtainable will now be even harder to get should have built an 80k stadium

barnshee

I agree about the size of the stadium, speaking from the footballing side it is impossible to get a ticket for an Ireland game unless you are on the block booking system.

The FAI say they have over 3000 names on the waiting list for block booking.

Individual block bookers can obtain up to six tickets per game, so the maths show that the 50000 tickets are basically gone before the stadium is even built.

I've just seen the pictures. It looks well and it seems they've put some real thought into it. If only the SIB had the common sense....

The capacity of the stadium is constrained by the fact that Lansdowne Road is not a greenfield site, traffic considerations and local resident concerns.

Totally agree with comments on the Maze, except for the notion of Lisburn as 'second' city - what happened to Derry and Armagh? I have had some great nights at Windsor, but I wouldn't object to leaving - as long as it's to somewhere else in Belfast. Titanic Quarter would have been ideal as it's so close to Central Station.

On topic, it looks good on the inside views, not sure about the outside though. Maybe 50,000 is a wee bit small, but you don't want to go too big either or it will kill the atmosphere. There is a lot to be said for block bookers and the people who are willing to queue up having most of the tickets.

I think the stadium looks fantastic. It's a beautiful design - well, maybe the south end has a bit of a boxers' nose but hey ,you can't have it all. I'm very impressed that they have taken the feelings of local residents into account in the way it sweeps down at the northern end.

I also think a capacity of 50,000 is about right too. If you built an 80,000-seater or something approaching that, truth is it'd be an atmosphere-free, half-empty barn for all but a handful of matches per decade. It'd be big enough for a Champions' League or UEFA cup final.

For the really big games (Ireland v England every two years, a decisive qualifier against a top team - though that seems unlikely in the short to medium term - maybe even a RWC final or of course a Champions' League/UEFA final) Croker is now available.

(I don't for one second believe that once opened Croker will ever close its doors again.)

So now we have the best of all worlds: a fantastic, buzzing 50,000-seater for games of that magnitude, and a rollicking, roaring 80,000-seater for the really big ones.

I'm not sure how it has happened but it seems the FAI/IRFU are about to become the envy of their international peers!

I honestly believe an ultra-modern stadium such as the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff can inject a massive jolt to the home side. You just have to look at some of Wales' results there in both Soccer and more recently Rugby.

That's not to say Cardiff Arms Park or Lansdowne Road were incapable of supplying atmosphere, but when big teams would visit I predict they often took one look at the (let's face it) second rate ground and judged us to be a second rate outfit.

I for one was embarrassed when I saw Israel’s stadium, even more so when I looked at Switzerland's. Maybe in future teams will come to Dublin and be intimidated by their new surroundings.

Nah, BFH, before the French game I think it was 10 years since the ROI lost a homegame.

The players weren't up to/for it!