Croke Park

In the 1880s the ground at Jones' Road in Dublin belonged to Maurice Butterly and was known as the City and Suburban Racecourse. In 1891 Butterly's field hosted athletics meetings organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association. A journalist and GAA member, Frank Dineen, borrowed much of the £3,250 asking price and bought the ground in 1908; the GAA came into exclusive ownership in 1913, buying the plot from him for £3,500 and renaming it Croke Park after Archbishop Thomas Croke, one of the Association's first patrons.

A grassy hill was raised at the railway end to give patrons a better view of the pitch, dated by accounts to 1915 or 1917. It was first called Hill 60, after the Gallipoli battle in which the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Munster Fusiliers and Connaught Rangers fought, and was renamed Hill 16 in memory of the 1916 Easter Rising; the story that it was made from the ruins of the GPO is erroneous. In 1918 the GAA set out to create a high-capacity stadium on the site.

On 21 November 1920, during the Irish War of Independence, the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary entered Croke Park during a Dublin–Tipperary Gaelic football match and began shooting into the crowd, killing or fatally wounding fourteen civilians. Thirteen were spectators; the fourteenth was the Tipperary player Michael Hogan. The shootings were a reprisal for the killing earlier that day of fifteen people associated with the Cairo Gang, a group of British intelligence officers, by Michael Collins' Squad. The Hogan Stand, built in 1924, was named in Hogan's honour.

The Cusack Stand, named for Michael Cusack, who founded the GAA and served as its first secretary, was built in 1927; a double-deck Cusack Stand seating 5,000 opened in 1936. The Nally Stand of 1952 commemorated Pat Nally, another of the founders, and the first cantilevered New Hogan Stand opened in 1959 for the Association's 75th anniversary. The highest attendance recorded at an All-Ireland senior football final was 90,556, for Offaly against Down in 1961; since seating came to the Cusack Stand in 1966 the largest crowd has been 84,516.

A design for an 80,000-capacity stadium was completed in 1991. The work was split into four phases over fourteen years, and the stadium did not close: All-Ireland finals were played there throughout. Phase one replaced the Cusack Stand, its lower deck opening in 1994 and its upper in 1995 at a cost of £35 million. Phase two, from late 1998, extended it across the Canal End and required reacquiring a rugby pitch Dineen had sold to Belvedere College in 1910, the college taking the Distillery Road grounds in part exchange; the stand was named for Maurice Davin, the GAA's first president, and its tunnel for Muhammad Ali, who fought Al Lewis at Croke Park in July 1972. The 1999 senior football final was the last played with the old Hogan Stand in place. Phase four began in September 2003, turning the Nally Stand and Hill 16 into the Nally End/Dineen Hill 16 terrace, the new name honouring Frank Dineen. GAA President Seán Kelly opened the phase on 14 March 2005, leaving the ground's only standing room and a total capacity of 82,300.

Rule 42 barred the use of GAA property for games whose interests conflicted with the Association's; until 1971 a member could also be banned from GAA games for playing association football, rugby or cricket. On 16 April 2005 the annual Congress voted 227 to 97 to let Central Council rent Croke Park out while Lansdowne Road was being rebuilt. Ireland's rugby team lost 17–20 to France there on 11 February 2007; the England match of 24 February raised considerable concern over how 'God Save the Queen' would be received after 1920, and the anthem was sung without interruption and applauded before Ireland won 43–13. The first association football match followed on 24 March 2007, a 1–0 win over Wales before 72,500, and the last rugby international was played on 2 March 2010, a three-point defeat by Scotland.

Croke Park is the headquarters of the Gaelic Athletic Association, which has owned it since 1913. The GAA opened a Hall of Fame in the Croke Park Museum on 11 February 2013. The National Handball Centre on Sackville Avenue, used for Health Service Executive COVID-19 testing, opened to registered players in December 2021. On 28 September 2025 the ground held its first regular-season NFL game, the Pittsburgh Steelers beating the Minnesota Vikings 24–21 before 74,512.