The Republic of Ireland football league system is a series of

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

leagues in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. Traditionally, leagues have been classified as either senior, intermediate or junior. These classifications are effectively national, provincial and

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

leagues respectively. However, the definition of 'junior' has expanded to include multi-county leagues (e.g. the Combined Counties Football League), municipal district leagues (e.g. West Cork League), and regional district leagues (e.g. Inishowen and north Dublin). The football system currently consists of 12 levels. The two highest level divisions, the League of Ireland Premier Division and the League of Ireland First Division are both part of the only national league, the

League of Ireland The League of Ireland is a national association football Sports league, league consisting of professional clubs in the Republic of Ireland and Derry, Derry City in Northern Ireland. It is governed by the Football Association of Ireland. It was ...

. The third level currently consists of two provincial leagues – the Leinster Senior League Senior Division and the Munster Senior League Senior Premier Division.

History

Senior

The original top-level league for what is now the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland, with a population of about 5.4 million. ...

was the Irish Football League. Founded in

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, this league is now the

Northern Ireland Football League The Northern Ireland Football League (abbreviated to NIFL), formerly known as and still commonly referred to as the Irish League, is the national football league of Northern Ireland. The Irish League was originally formed in 1890, with the leag ...

. Before the partition of Ireland, three

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

clubs – Bohemians, Shelbourne and Tritonville – played in the Irish Football League. The

was founded in

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and its Premier Division is now the top level division.

Intermediate

The two oldest association football leagues in what is now the

are the Leinster Senior League and the Munster Senior League. The former was founded in 1896 while the latter first appeared in the early 1900s. The Leinster Senior League's jurisdiction included the Greater Dublin Area, the most populated region in the country, and as a result it was effectively a '' de facto'' second-level league between 1896–97 and 1964–65. In 1964 the

formed the first formal national second level division, the League of Ireland B Division. In

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, following a reorganisation, the B Division was replaced as the second-level league by the League of Ireland First Division. As part of this reorganisation, a

promotion and relegation Promotion and relegation is used by sports leagues as a process where teams can move up and down among divisions in a league system, based on their performance over a season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are sometimes call ...

system involving the top two national divisions was introduced for the first time.

Junior

From 1964–65 until 2008 the Leinster Senior League and the Munster Senior League formed the third level. They were subsequently joined at this level by the Connacht Senior League in 1981 and the Ulster Senior League in 1986. Between

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and

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

, the provincial leagues were briefly replaced as the third level by a short lived national third-level league known as the A Championship. Following the demise of the A Championship, the provincial leagues regained their third level status. Both the Connacht and Ulster leagues were subsequently wound up.

Cup eligibility

Being members of a league at a particular level also affects eligibility for Cup, or single-elimination, competitions. *

FAI Cup The Football Association of Ireland Senior Challenge Cup (FAI Cup), known as the Sports Direct FAI Cup for sponsorship reasons, is a knock-out association football competition contested annually by teams from the Republic of Ireland (as well as D ...

: Levels 1–3 * League of Ireland Cup: Levels 1–2 * FAI Intermediate Cup: Levels 3–7 * FAI Junior Cup: Levels 7–12 Below level 7 the pyramid becomes regional and the cups become accordingly regional. Further down the pyramid is split on a county basis, counties having their own cups accordingly. This excludes some tournaments marked "Senior Cups", which often are competitions between teams representing top professional clubs in a given district, such as the Munster Senior Cup.

Promotion and relegation

system has existed between the League of Ireland Premier Division and the League of Ireland First Division since 1985–86. Between

and

, A Championship teams were also eligible for promotion to the First Division. Promotion and relegation systems also operate within the separate provincial league systems. There is no formal promotion and relegation relationship between the provincial leagues and the

. Teams have been invited to join the League of Ireland however. In

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, Cabinteely of the Leinster Senior League became the most recent team to accept an invite. In 2024, it was announced by the FAI that a 3rd tier will be launched in 2026. The new league will contain 20 clubs in total., split into North and South divisions. The teams will play against other teams in their respective divisions first to qualify for playoffs, where top teams from North and South will compete for a chance to be promoted to the LOI Men's First Division. This is expected to include various current intermediate clubs, as well as reserve sides of

clubs and new entities similar to Kerry F.C..

The system

Level one in the pyramid, the top division of Irish football, is run by the League of Ireland Premier Division (which gives its name to the competition in that division), the winners of which are regarded as the champions of the Republic of Ireland. Level two is run by the

. Together, these two divisions make up what is known as "league football". The leagues below level two are classed as "non-League football", meaning they are outside the League of Ireland. The leagues at levels three to six comprise the Provincial League System, and are run by the Provinces. The top level (level 3) of the Provincial leagues is known as the Senior Leagues and the winners of which are regarded as the champions of their respective Province. At present only

Munster Munster ( or ) is the largest of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the south west of the island. In early Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was one of the kingdoms of Gaelic Ireland ruled by a "king of over-kings" (). Following the Nor ...

and

Leinster Leinster ( ; or ) is one of the four provinces of Ireland, in the southeast of Ireland. The modern province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige, which existed during Gaelic Ireland. Following the 12th-century ...

have leagues at this level. Levels seven to twelve are designed as "Regional Feeder Leagues" or District Leagues. There is currently no promotion or relegation system between the League of Ireland First Division (Level 2) and the provincial leagues (Level 3) in place. Therefore, there is no movement between the football league and non-league football and the only way non-league club can enter the football league is if they are elected.

History

Senior

Intermediate

Junior

Cup eligibility

Promotion and relegation

The system

Current Structure

2026 Pyramid

See also

Notes

References