A report into a riot by English spectators at a football match between England and Ireland in Dublin in 1995 found pre-game safety decisions and information was \u201cnot clearly understood\u201d, according to archive documents.<\/p>\n
The Lansdowne Road riot broke out in the first half of the friendly match on February 15, 1995.<\/p>\n
English supporters forced the abandonment of the game 27 minutes into the match after Ireland took the lead.<\/p>\n
More than 20 people were injured when projectiles were thrown from the upper to lower parts of the stadium.<\/p>\n
Government ministers were told in the aftermath of the incident that Garda reserve and public order members at the stadium were \u201cinsufficient\u201d and pre-game safety decisions and information was \u201cnot clearly understood or remembered\u201d by the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) and gardai.<\/p>\n
Confidential documents published as part of the annual release from National Archives of Ireland in Dublin also show the government was told gardai should have the final say on the kick-off time.<\/p>\n
The Finlay report into the incident concluded the \u201cactual serious violence experienced at the match was caused solely by English fans and that this violence had been planned\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a note to Cabinet on April 4 1995, ministers were told segregation efforts between English and Irish fans were undermined due to the reselling of returned tickets and the use of seated people as an \u201cinsufficient barrier\u201d.<\/p>\n
The note said: \u201cThe choice of particular parts of the stadium to accommodate English fans created difficulties.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Garda reserve and public order units in the stadium were insufficient.<\/p>\n
\u201cInsufficient meetings were arranged between individual groups of stewards or security men and Garda personnel.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome decisions made and information conveyed in the pre-match meetings between the gardai and the FAI were not clearly understood or remembered in the absence of written confirmation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The note added that information received from the English National Criminal Intelligence Service by gardai was \u201cnot sufficiently conveyed\u201d to FAI officials.<\/p>\n
As a result, ministers were told the Finlay report had recommended limiting away fan numbers to less than 10% and to move away fan seats to \u201ca portion of the north end of the lower deck of the east stand\u201d.<\/p>\n
It said spectators should be seated in a way that is \u201cirrespective of whether the match is competitive or a friendly\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2013 This article is based on documents in the file labelled 2025\/115\/986 at the National Archives of Ireland.<\/p>\n
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ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A report into a riot by English spectators at a football match between England and Ireland in Dublin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[615,5040,1128,52166,55,61,60,111971,111972,97760,43],"class_list":["post-215507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-dublin","tag-england","tag-football","tag-football-association-of-ireland","tag-garda","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lansdowne-road","tag-lansdowne-road-riot","tag-national-archives-of-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}