History of rugby union matches between Ireland and the United States
aspect of history
Ireland and United States first played each other at rugby union in 1994 with Ireland emerging victorious, 26–15 at their home ground, Lansdowne Road, in Dublin. They have played each other eleven times, five times in the United States, five times in Ireland and once at a neutral venue in New Zealand during the 2011 Rugby World Cup. Ireland and the US also played each other in the 1999 Rugby World Cup, but the fixture was played at Ireland's home ground. Ireland's 83–3 victory against the US in June 2000 was their highest score and largest winning margin against any international opponent until July 2025 when Ireland beat Portugal 7–106. Ireland have won all eleven matches played between the teams. In March 1990 an under-25 Ireland side beat at full USA side 12–10 at Thomond Park. Four days prior to competing in their first international test match, a full USA side beat an Ireland Development side 20–13 at The Sportsground on 1 November 1994.
Summary
Note: Summary below reflects test results by both teams.
Overview
Results
XV Results
Below is a list of matches that the United States has awarded matches test match status by virtue of awarding caps, but Ireland did not award caps.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 21, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q17015215. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1994, 2011, 1999 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “History of rugby union matches between Ireland and the United States” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.