History
Ireland's basketball association affiliated to FIBA in 1947. In 1948 the team was invited to the 1948 Olympic tournament in nearby London, from which many top sides were absent in the aftermath of World War II. The team finished last, losing every match heavily. Ireland were involved in Olympic qualification only once; in 1976 they finished bottom of the European qualification group.
In 1988 Ireland finished runner-up in EuroBasket Division C. In 1993 the National Basketball Arena opened which became the team's new permanent home. Division C was hosted there the following year, and Ireland beat Cyprus 81–78 in the final to gain promotion to EuroBasket Division B. Ireland narrowly failed to win promotion to Division A in EuroBasket 2005, losing to Denmark by 4 points after having won the first game in Dublin by 10 points.
In February 2010, with Ireland in the midst of a serious economic decline, Basketball Ireland announced that it was €1.2m in debt and was deactivating its senior international squads to cut costs.
Read more about this topic: Ireland National Basketball Team
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”
—Terry Hands (b. 1941)