Croke Park's Description
Croke Park (Irish: P?irc an Chr?caigh) is the largest sports stadium in Ireland and the principal stadium and headquarters of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), Ireland’s biggest sporting organisation. Since 1884 the site has been used primarily by the GAA to host Gaelic Games, most notably the annual finals of the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship and hurling championship. Music concerts by major international acts have also been held in “Croker,” as it is often called.
On November 21, 1920 Croke Park was the scene of a massacre by the Auxiliary Division. British police auxiliaries entered the ground, shooting indiscriminately into the crowd killing 13 during a Dublin-Tipperary football match. The dead included 12 spectators and one player, Michael Hogan. The latter, Tipperary’s captain, gave his name posthumously to the Hogan stand built four years later in 1924. These shootings, on the day which became known as Bloody Sunday, were a reprisal for the assassination of 14 British Intelligence officers, known as the Cairo Gang, by Michael Collins’ squad earlier that day.
