Dev's 1933 bowl comes full circle

"Stadium a national necessity," cried the newspaper headline. "Our duty to the youth of the country," said the sub-heading.

And within days the following: "The Irish athletic movement plans for the future. Ireland may get chance to house Olympic Games. State aid to be sought: a national committee favoured."

If all this is starting to sound familiar, well it shouldn't. It was a long time ago. 1933, in fact, and sporting organisations and the government were debating a plan to build an international-standard sports stadium in north Co Dublin.

The stadium would bring major sporting events to Ireland, adding prestige to the State, not to mention to the Fianna Fáil taoiseach of the day, Mr de Valera. It would also bring in much-needed cash.

It was all going to be terrific: the stadium could be built in the Phoenix Park and the dream was to host the 1940 Olympics. Feelers had already gone out to the Olympic Committee.

One headline in the Irish Independent suggested that what Ireland had lacked in the recent "revival" was a major international sports venue of which the State could be proud. Much was made of the beneficial effect of sport on young people, not least in keeping them out of trouble.

The idea had been initially floated by the president of the National Athletic and Cycling Association (NACA), Gen Eoin O'Duffy, and reportedly received widespread support from the Fianna Fáil administration - until that is, the horrendous cost of the undertaking, estimated to be in the region of £100,000, emerged.

In a move to overcome this difficulty, Gen O'Duffy suggested to government that the State provide a site for the stadium, and raise finance for the construction costs from the private sector. He appears to have been under no delusions about the profitability of the venture, and his suggested method of private-sector finance was a sweepstake.

He raised the Olympics idea with the Olympic Council, whose president, Count de Baillet-Latour of Belgium, gave a positive response. Negotiations were on-going. The Irish Press of the time reports that while Mr de Valera was initially taken with the idea, the high cost put the project on the long finger.

The stadium plans never completely went away, and an up-to-date facility was mooted as recently as 1996 as part of a commercial redevelopment of the Phoenix Park racecourse. This plan, too, fell by the wayside.

History records, however, that the sweepstake as a method of funding became very successful ... as a fillip to the cash-hungry health service. But that was a different world, wasn't it?