Donal Cullen

In March 1926 a group of Irishmen left the Free State on a journey that took three days. Their destination was Italy and they were travelling to play their first full soccer international soccer match. The journey was long but the story that brought the Freestaters to Italy was just as long. It began five years earlier when an internal dispute within the Irish Football Association became entangled in the political division of Ireland. The Split led to two rival Irish associations playing international soccer. Freestaters covers the events before and after that first full international in Italy. Irish teams entered and nearly qualified for the World Cups of 1934 and 1938, travelled to Nazi Germany, and launched the careers of some of the finest players ever to wear the green shirt. Freestaters answers everything you ever wanted to know about the Republic of Ireland soccer team before World War Two.