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Florida State hosts special delegation from College Football Ireland

On3 imageby:Ira Schoffel•10/06/23•

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Dublin Lord Mayor Daithí de Róiste (left) and Aer Lingus Classic co-founder Padraic O'Kane speak with Warchant after watching Florida State football practice Thursday. (Ira Schoffel/Warchant)

The Virginia Tech Hokies won’t be the only visitors checking out Florida State’s Doak Campbell Stadium on Saturday.

In preparation for next year’s FSU season opener in Ireland, a delegation representing College Football Ireland arrived in Tallahassee on Wednesday and will be staying through the weekend. The visitors received a tour of the Florida State campus, they were invited to watch part of Thursday morning’s practice, and they will be special guests during the Seminoles’ game against Virginia Tech.

“We’re delighted to be here,” Daithí de Róiste, Lord Mayor of Dublin, told Warchant. “We’re delighted to be launching Game Day Zero for next year. It’s absolutely amazing to be over here.”

While Ireland has hosted several college football games over the past four decades, the events have been picking up momentum in recent years.

Now dubbed the Aer Lingus College Football Classic, the game featured Nebraska-Northwestern in 2022 and Notre Dame-Navy this year. Both of those matchups were “Week Zero” games in late August, as will Florida State’s contest against Georgia Tech in 2024; that game is slated for next Aug. 24.

“When we started this journey, we never could have imagined that this would be the third consecutive year where college football season starts in Dublin,” said Padraic O’Kane, one of the game’s co-founders and a successful businessman in Ireland’s hospitality industry. “To bring the Seminoles and Georgia Tech in next year is just phenomenal.”

This year’s Notre Dame-Navy game not only featured a sellout crowd of 49,000 in Dublin’s Aviva Stadium, but the game also brought an estimated 40,000-plus Americans to the European nation.

Before the game, Dublin closed down a portion of the city for an Irish-themed college football tailgate, and the streets were lined with tens of thousands of fans.

Event organizers said sales so far indicate the Florida State-Georgia Tech game might draw even more Americans for next year’s contest.

“We had tens of thousands of people just enjoying culture …,” de Róiste said. “I’m being told already that this game is tracking to being bigger numbers. And we’re so excited to welcome everybody to Dublin.”

O’Kane noted that in the last U.S. Census, some 2.5 million Floridians claimed Irish ancestry.

With the event’s theme being, “Much more than a game,” the Aer Lingus Classic is offering a variety of ticket packages to Florida State fans at Seminoles2Ireland.com. There are golf packages, packages that involve sightseeing around the country, and others focused more on Dublin.

Here’s Warchant’s complete interview with de Róiste and O’Kane:

And here’s more footage from Warchant’s trip to Dublin late this summer, during which we got a sneak peek at all the city has to offer.

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Talk about this story with other die-hard Florida State football fans on the Tribal Council.

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