A one-day conference exploring the history of the League of Ireland is set to take place this Saturday, January 14, at Dalymount Park in Dublin. The event coincides with the publication of The League of Ireland: An Historical and Contemporary Assessment, edited by Conor Curran.

Among the speakers at the conference – which is free to register for – is Ken McCue, from the group Sports Against Racism Ireland (SARI), as well as several historians and lecturers from numerous Irish universities.

Topics covered over the course of the day will include football in late 19th century Dublin; attitudes to sport during the Irish Civil War; the League of Ireland's inaugural season in the early 1920s; the use of sport to further human rights in society; the formation of women's football governing bodies in Ireland; and more.

The League of Ireland: An Historical and Contemporary Assessment draws on the work of a number of leading historians of Irish soccer, to examine a number of previously under-researched aspects relating to the league.

According to the publisher Routledge's website, the book "examines the initial growth of clubs in Dublin and the Free State League’s early turbulent history, while the impact of Irish players and administrators on the development of soccer clubs at home and abroad is also assessed."

"Following the partition of Ireland in 1921, players continued to move from Dublin clubs to those in Northern Ireland and this is also discussed, particularly in light of the Troubles of 1968–1998," the official description continues. "Despite the migration of many Irish-born players to Britain, the League of Ireland has also attracted internationally based players and the impact of this is also examined. The role of the league in the provision of players for the Irish Olympic team is also explored, as is the work of SARI in its attempts to eradicate racism from Irish sport.

"This publication aims to commemorate some of those who have strived to maintain the League of Ireland’s presence against the backdrop of what has become the world’s most attractive football league, located in Ireland’s neighbour, England. It will be of interest to researchers and advanced students of Sports, History, Sociology and Politics. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal, Soccer & Society."

Conor Curran (www.tcd.ie)

The conference will take place on Saturday, January 14, from 9.30am until 4.15pm at Dalymount Park. See the full schedule below:

• 9.30-10 am: Conor Curran (Trinity College Dublin): Introductory Comments
• 10-10.30 am: Julien Clenet (University College Dublin): ‘Association football in Dublin in the late Nineteenth Century: an Overview’
• 10.30-11 am: Cormac Moore (Dublin City Council Resident Historian) ‘The Formation of the Football Association of Ireland’
• 11.00-11.30 am: Aaron Ó Maonaigh (Independent Scholar) “In the Ráth Camp, rugby or soccer would not have been tolerated by the prisoners’: Irish Civil War attitudes to sport, 1922-3.’
• 11.30-12 pm: Conor Heffernan (Ulster University) and Joseph Taylor (University College Dublin): ‘A League is Born: The League of Ireland’s Inaugural Season, 1921-1922’
• 12-12.30 pm: Conor Curran (Trinity College Dublin): ‘The cross-border movement of Republic of Ireland-born footballers to Northern Ireland clubs, 1922-2000’
• 12.30-1.30 pm: Lunch
• 1.30-2 pm: Gerry Farrell (Independent Scholar): ‘One-way traffic? – 100 years of soldiers, mercenaries, refugees and other footballing migrants in the League of Ireland, 1920 -2020’
• 2-2.30 pm: Tom Hunt (Independent Scholar): ‘Ireland's Footballers at the 1924 and 1948 Olympic Games: Compromised by the Politics of Sport’
• 2.30-3 pm: Michael Kielty (Dublin Business School): ‘Peter J. Peel: The Soccer King’
• 3-3.30 pm: Ken McCue (De Montfort University): ‘Who’s SARI now: Social enterprise and the use of the medium of sport to further human rights in society’
• 3.30-4 pm: Helena Byrne (Independent Scholar) ‘Breaking new ground: The formation of women’s football governing bodies in 1970s Ireland’
• 4-4.15pm Closing Comments

Register for the conference for free here.