Croke Park Stadium Tour - The Home of the GAA - Dublin Travel Guide

Hi guys, welcome to another episode of Ultimate Bucket List, and on today's show I show you around the spiritual home of the Irish Gaelic Sports. Croke Park, the largest stadium in Ireland and the headquarters of the Gaelic Athletic Association. This is the governing body of the Gaelic Sports such as Hurling, Gaelic Football, Camogie and Handball. As this is located in Dublin, it's sometimes also home to Dublin GAA, go dubs! And this mammoth looking facility has a mammoth amount of seats. Built in 1884 with a capacity crowd of 82,300, it's hard to believe that this is the third largest stadium in all of Europe. But what's it like to actually go around? Well firstly it's located in the middle of a housing estate, so you're going to have to walk along some very dodgy looking streets in order to get here. Boy that's really dodgy looking! In the meantime, you might come across this place; the National Handball Centre, and the entrance to the Stadium Tours is literally signposted all the way to the entrance. So follow the signs and into the car park where you'll come across the Cusack End and … whoa there's a lot of kids here today! Boy, I hope I'm not stuck in a school group full of all these people. Anyway right here you'll find the statue of Michael Cusack himself, the founder of the GAA. And the entrance to the Stadium tours is right here where it says the GAA Museum, in and amongst the club wall full of all the clubs in Ireland. Whilst you're here actually check out the Blackthorn Cafe named after Michael Cusack's Blackthorn walking stick. It's actually quite a nice place to chill out and have a meal before the actual tour begins. Speaking of which, when the tour begins they'll lead you out into the press conference bay, where you'll get shown a rousing video about what it's like on All Ireland final day. The pageantry, the emotion. But once you finish with the film, it's time to walk around the exterior of the stadium. You'll find some giant looking things here such as these giant hurley’s, but as you can tell guys it's a massive stadium and you'll be walking for quite a bit. You'll eventually come across one of the corporate hospitality areas and more importantly the players-only lounge. As you can tell from the name of course, it's used only by the players and their friends and family. If you take a closer look at the chandeliers they're all Sliotar’s and Gaelic footballs, so that's pretty cool. Croke park has six identical changing rooms, and this is so that no one team has an advantage over another. We step foot in this one with all of the club's jerseys out on display. It's pretty cool to see the variation of the playing jerseys and it's also nice to hear what goes on in a typical dressing room. Go Dubs! You get a small talk as to what happens in a typical dressing room on a typical game day and you also get shown arousing video as to what actually happens in here. Let's see what the shower and toilet facilities are like … actually pretty nice! And given that there's six dressing rooms exactly like this, this is quite fancy even by Premier League standards. Once you've had your pictures taken with your favourite team shirts, it's now time to walk out into the warm-up area. And once again it has several warm-up areas for every single team. It's a nice place to kick a ball around before you actually step foot onto the field. It's here that you'll also find the medical facilities and the massage stations. But anyway it's time to get the hell out of here and walk out of the tunnel. You do a Tunnel Walk, kind of, in an amongst a little bit of crowd music … where you'll be greeted by this tractor looking thing. As you can tell they're working on the field right now, so we don't stick around this area for very long, mainly because the tractor's in the way. So it's up the stairs we go and past the coaches seats into the cup presentation area. So, if you win a trophy your team gets invited up here. And the view from the trophy presentation area pretty good. You're given a talk about what typically happens when a team wins something like the Liam McCarthy cup, and he'll tell you a lot about the actual stadium itself. Such as what the grass is like, how many seats there are, you know the typical stuff that you would typically find in any typical stadium tour. Looking around the stadium, apart from this end bit here, the stadium is absolutely mammoth. And I'm sure if they developed this end here, this place would reach over 100,000 easy. Unfortunately they can't due to the residents behind the stadium. But it's a nice Stadium anyway even though it looks like it's three quarters built. You get lots of education here before climbing up the stairs and into the slightly more fancier seats. So from the rich-people seats, the view is still pretty good. But if you're a rich person and you can afford these seats, you also get access to this lounge, which is a lot fancier than what everyone else gets. And currently I think they're filming something here, so we don't stick around here for very long. It's up several escalators we go before we reach the 700 section of the stadium. We're here outside of the press area. You get a short historical talk about the voice of the GAA Michael O' Hehir, before walking out into the press area. And boy it's really steep up here! If you're a journalist, this is how you'll view the game. But if you're a poor person like me who can only afford the cheap seats, right at the top here, the seating area is pretty damn steep. If you're scared of heights or if you suffer from vertigo this is definitely a bad day for you. It's really steep up here, and it certainly isn't as nice of you as it was down in the rich people seats. By the way you can actually take a tour of Croke Park from the roof of the stadium if you want to. Yes, they do something called the Skywalk where you can walk around the roof of Croke Park, but I didn't bother, obviously. Instead of walking around the roof, we end up walking around the edge of the stadium. So you get a nice lovely view of Dublin especially on a nice day like today, because usually it's pouring down with rain. That's the Handball Centre again. We walk around and into one of the Corporate Hospitality boxes which are fancy. Yeah I wouldn't mind seeing a game from here! With your own Corporate Hospitality box you get your own Corporate Hospitality seats. So this section right here is for your entire box, so that's pretty good. And the view not bad not bad at all! I think if I was to get tickets to an All-Ireland Final I'd probably have to buy one of these boxes just for myself. That's the only way you apparently get tickets to these things if you're not affiliated with either team. But anyway, it's time to go back to ground level and our tour is actually almost finished. You get a talk about all of the clubs that play for the GAA, before waving goodbye and you can finish your tour here if you want to. That said the price of Entry also includes access to the GAA Museum. This is one of the nicest museums that I've ever come across. As soon as you walk in, there's a giant video playing about some of the most exciting moments in Gaelic Sports history. And the first thing you'll notice when you come into the museum is that it's incredibly colourful. There's definitely a lot to learn a lot to see and a lot to do here. The most important things are right here in this display cabinet. In particular these two trophies right here. The Sam Maguire Cup which is awarded to the victors of the All-Ireland champions of Gaelic Football. And this, the Liam McCarthy Cup - awarded to the victors of the All-Ireland champions of Hurling. Together these two are the two Holy Grails of Irish Sports. And it's pretty cool to see them up close and personal, as I've only ever seen these on TV and on the internet. Speaking of which, there's plenty of artefacts and exhibits to keep you entertained and occupied. Whether it's playing jerseys, things that people have won, actual game used memorabilia, it's all very very educational. And if I'm being honest a little bit overwhelming! If you're a fan of the Irish Sports this will be pretty enthralling and you can easily spend anywhere between an hour and two hours here. It's definitely worth taking your time to explore some of the things that are on display here at the GAA Museum. You'll also learn about the tragic events of Bloody Sunday, an incident that no Irish person will ever forget. All the exhibits are incredibly interesting and you'll even visit the GAA Hall of Fame which denotes some of the best players to have ever played their sports. And yeah you can definitely spend hours in here if you're a massive fan. If you're a younger fan and you don't want to be bored with education. there's lots of interactive things for you to do. Yes, you can even test your Hurling and Gaelic football, and there's plenty of things for you to try and do yourself. Such as high-catching, reaction times. But undoubtedly the two most popular ones are the Hurling and the Gaelic football. How's my hurling skills? Well that's actually not bad. And my Gaelic football? Well that's one. That's two. That's two again. And that's three. And just in case you missed it because my leg was in the way, there's three again. Easy! But overall a visit to the GAA Museum definitely comes highly recommended. But before you go there's a gift shop! There's not much to buy here in the gift shop, it's only really small but it's definitely worth buying a souvenir as a memento of your visit. Overall if you are in the Dublin area or if you are a fan of the Irish Sports, this definitely comes recommended. Special thanks to our tour guide Jonny - he did a fantastic tour today. It's definitely worth visiting once in your life, especially if you're a fan of the Irish sports or if you're here in the Dublin area. So Ninh, where does this rank on the hierarchy of your stadium tours? Well, even though the GAA maintains that Croke Park is a venue for Gaelic Sports only, it has hosted association football in the past, so it does actually go on my hierarchy and it goes somewhere around here. It's a good tour and the museum definitely makes it worth the money. The things that you do see around the Croke Park tour, you don't get to see all that much of it. But you know what? It was actually better than quite a lot of the tours that I've done, that have a lot more stuff on display, so I can't be too critical about that. If it didn't include that wonderful museum it'd probably be lower. But as it stands it's pretty good. Okay Ninh, I'm sold. What do I need to do? Well you'll need to come here to Croke Park. It's situated in the Northeast area of Dublin, and to get here I decided to walk in, took about 25 minutes just from walking in from the city centre, but public transportation is readily available. The cost to do the tour, it was about €15 and for that you get a full guided tour and access to the GAA Museum, so it definitely is value for money. Is there anything else I need to know? Yes, officially videography is not allowed though you can take as many photos as you like. And there's a lot of walking and a lot of stair climbing on this tour, so if you're not good with stairs or if you don't like to walk a lot, this might not be the tour for you. But overall guys, it's definitely worth visiting once in your life. And if you have enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe. Comment on that comment section below, and if you've got any other bucket list ideas, you know what to do. If I get enough suggestions, I'll probably make a video about it. So guys, thank you very much for watching. From here at Croke Park, we'll see you in the next episode. Ninh Ly – www.ninh.co.uk - @NinhLyUK