{"id":462671,"date":"2026-05-23T02:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T02:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/462671\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T02:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T02:07:11","slug":"englands-declan-rice-used-to-play-football-for-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/462671\/","title":{"rendered":"England’s Declan Rice used to play football for Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Ireland won’t be at the World Cup, that doesn’t mean we can’t embrace soccer season or at least use it as an excuse to get our pals together to watch the games.<\/p>\n

One football player who is lacing up their boots for the World Cup in 2026 is Declan Rice, who, before playing for England, was more used to wearing a green shirt.<\/p>\n

Declan, 27, played for Ireland before changing allegiances in 2019. So, with the World Cup on the horizon, here’s everything to know about him…<\/p>\n

\"DeclanDeclan Rice playing for the Republic of Ireland in 2018. Pic: INPHO\/Ryan Byrne<\/p>\n

Playing for Ireland<\/p>\n

Declan played for Ireland at the start of his career and made three senior appearances before switching to the England team in 2019. <\/p>\n

He followed in the footsteps of fellow England player Jack Grealish<\/a> who won six caps for Ireland at under-21 level before changing to play for England in 2015.<\/p>\n

Declan was born in England but because his grandparents are Irish he was able to play for Ireland through his family connection. His father S\u00e9an’s parents, Margaret and Jack, are from Douglas in Co Cork.<\/p>\n

\"DeclanDeclan Rice playing for the Republic of Ireland in 2018. Pic: INPHO\/Laszlo Geczo<\/p>\n

As well as playing for Ireland and England, Declan has played for West Ham and Arsenal with his move to Arsenal part of a deal worth \u00a3105m (\u20ac124m). <\/p>\n

When the move was confirmed RT\u00c9 raised eyebrows<\/a> by using footage of Declan playing for Ireland with the video quickly going viral.<\/p>\n

Moving to England<\/p>\n

\"DeclanDeclan Rice playing for England. Pic: Julian Finney\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Declan switched allegiances to England in 2019 when he was 20, saying at the time that it was the ‘toughest decision’. <\/p>\n

He told Sky Sports<\/a>: ‘It is the toughest decision I have had to make so far in my career. Being so young, I didn’t think I would ever be in a position to make that call but it’s one that I have made and one that I am looking forward to in the future.’<\/p>\n

Although he moved to England, Declan won the FAI’s Young Player of the Year award in 2019. He had made three friendly appearances for Ireland in 2018 so qualified for the gong.<\/p>\n

Declan’s family<\/p>\n

\"LaurenLauren Fryer (C), girlfriend of Declan Rice of England, at a World Cup Qatar 2022 match. Pic: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Since moving to England, Declan has become a big name in the game but he’s also celebrated lots of milestones in his personal life.<\/p>\n

The footballer has been with his partner Lauren Fryer for several years and they met while still teenagers. In 2022 they welcomed their first child together, a little boy called Jude. <\/p>\n

News of their son’s arrival was broken when Declan debuted a tattoo of Jude’s name and date of birth, August 7, on his arm.<\/p>\n

Standing up for his partner<\/p>\n

\"DeclanDeclan Rice and Lauren Fryer. Pic: Instagram<\/p>\n

With fame comes lots of attention and trolls have targeted Declan and Lauren over the years. <\/p>\n

As Declan’s profile on the pitch has grown, cruel trolls have taunted his girlfriend online with some attacking her appearance and saying he could ‘do better’.<\/p>\n

Although some people did try to stand up for her and slam the trolls, the abuse got so bad that Lauren deleted her social media accounts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Ireland won’t be at the World Cup, that doesn’t mean we can’t embrace soccer season or at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-462671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462671","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=462671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}