The connection between the Rooney family and Ireland has been well reported on and hyped in the lead-up to the first regular-season NFL game Sunday in Dublin.
Can that link become even more evident? Yes, indeed.
The Steelers practice jerseys for Friday and Saturday will display the players’ names in Irish Gaelic, or Gaeilge as it’s known in country, the first official language of The Republic of Ireland.
Pro Knitwear in Brookline created the 280 jerseys and delivered them to the team last week. Vice President of Sales John Young said his company made two short-sleeve and two long-sleeve jerseys for each player. That covers all 53 rostered players plus practice squad players, about 70 in total who made the trip after a win Sunday over the New England Patriots. The Steelers will practice at Carton House training facility, about 16 miles outside of Dublin, not setting one cleat on the Croke Park field until Sunday.
Young said he “brainstormed some cool ideas” for the team in recognition of this special international game with a Steelers equipment manager at the South Side practice facility some time back. Young is connected to the Gaelic Athletic Association that runs Croke Park, where the game will be played, because he is on the American board of the association and had been involved with Pittsburgh GAA. And his sister is serving her first term on the Croke Park board.
The Brookline sportswear company handles jerseys for all Pittsburgh pro sports teams, and the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University are among its many clients, Young said. It also works with other NFL teams – San Francisco 49ers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New England Patriots. Young started with Pro Knitwear in 1993 and said he now is a partner. Timothy X. Feeney is the second-generation owner and president of the company that started 72 years ago.
The Steelers approved the idea, and GAA Ireland language officer Aedin Ná Bhriain translated the names, Young explained. She will do the same with both teams’ roster sheets ahead of the game, which will be broadcast at 9:30 a.m. EST. Everything produced in sports has to be in both languages, and that includes the game program.
No, the jerseys aren’t green. “The Steelers wanted to keep the same [black and gold] colors,” Young said.
The Minnesota Vikings, the Steelers opponent, won’t have special jerseys, he believes. “They’re just going to play the game. The Steelers are going all out.”
The GAA is Ireland’s largest sporting organization, according to its website, founded on Nov. 1, 1884. It promotes Gaelic games such as hurling, football, handball and rounders, and works with sister organizations to promote women’s football and camogie. The association also promotes Irish music, song and dance, and the Irish language as an integral part of its objectives. The GAA has more than 2,200 clubs in all 32 counties of Ireland, and its website stresses it has remained an amateur association since its founding.
“Everybody is a stakeholder once they become members,” Young said, noting no one gets paid to play – it’s all amateurs. Proceeds from ticket sales are distributed to youth teams.
Its headquarters are at Croke Park, and its website notes the stadium has been “thoroughly modernized” in a project that took place between 1993 and 2005, increasing its capacity from 64,000 to 82,300. It now is considered to be among the largest and most modern stadiums in Europe.
The NFL Dublin Game is one of seven international games that will be played in the 2025 season, according to a Steelers website news release. It is part of ongoing efforts to continue to expand the NFL’s global footprint.
Steelers President Art Rooney II and his family have a rich history and deep connection with Ireland, it explained. The Rooney family emigrated to the United States from Newry, County Down. The late Dan Rooney, Art Rooney II’s father, served as U.S. ambassador to Ireland from 2009-12 and was a co-founder of The Ireland Funds in 1976.
The Steelers organization has been active in the Irish market as part of the NFL’s Global Markets Program, which granted the team rights to expand activities on the Island of Ireland in 2023, the news release stated. The Steelers have fostered in-market partnerships and played host to in-person activities such as watch parties and flag football events to raise awareness of American football and to reach and engage Irish fans. And all that is happening right now in Ireland.
Some tickets remained for the game, mostly because teams are turning back tickets they can’t use or sell, Young said.
The Steelers previously played an exhibition game in Dublin, he said, and a Steelers Wire story on Yahoo sports lists one in 1997 against the Chicago Bears. In that same post, it reported the U.S. Embassy in Ireland played host to a flag football tournament on the Fourth of July, with then-Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger attending.
Other international games, according to Steelers Now: The Steelers played in Mexico just once, a 24-23 loss to the Indianapolis Colts in the 2000 preseason. Three other international preseason games took place in 1993 against the San Francisco 49ers in Barcelona, 1996 against the San Diego Chargers in Tokyo, and 2008 against the Buffalo Bills in Toronto in addition to the 1997 Dublin appearance. The 2013 game in London – also against the Vikings – was the team’s lone regular-season international contest before Sunday.
Young said believes “there are Steelers fans everywhere,” and that includes Ireland, especially because of the winning Steelers teams of 1970s and 1990s.
He would know. Young is a County Down, Northern Ireland native, and his wife, Marie, is from Dublin. She teaches Gaelic and Irish-based courses at Pitt and also is involved in the PGAA and the Pittsburgh Irish community. Marie also serves as director of Irish language at the Ireland Institute of Pittsburgh, where she co-developed an online Irish learning program, according to her Pitt website bio. The family lives in Mt. Lebanon.
Marie is staying home and teaching her Pitt classes. She took students to Ireland earlier this year, the first time she could since the pandemic. During the visit, Marie and her students toured Croke Park, which included walking all around its top, called the skyline, while attached to a rope. Good thing, she said, as it was windy.
She is not involved in the American GAA but is in her first year as youth chair for the Gaelic football association in Pittsburgh. Two of the Youngs’ sons, Ronan, 17, and Tiernan, 12, played in the youth league; Ronan now has moved up into the adult ranks.
PGAA just started Mothers and Others, a noncompetitive women’s Gaelic football program. Marie has become involved in it after never playing the sport in Ireland. They are heading to a tournament in Philadelphia later this year. She did spend some time playing for the Banshees, a competitive women’s team here, though.
Her brother, who introduced her to her husband the first day she came to the United States in 2001, is working on a documentary about the Pittsburgh Gaelic football teams. That’s how deep the family ties are to the sport.
Marie has been getting photos from her husband and following Ronan’s posts on his Steel City Recaps Instagram account as game day approaches. Ronan, who plans to study communications in college, has 17,500 followers, she said. He is spending time collecting interviews and live reporting on it as his dad tends to his business.
“It’s very special,” his dad said before they left for Ireland. “Just cool all the way around.”
He and his eldest son, Jack, will work the game, too. They will be at the practices and then on Sunday as ball boys along the sidelines during the game. Young said he will be a “utility person, doing whatever they need doing” in the equipment room and during the game.
Jack, 26, who played at the University of Michigan, had worked as a ball boy at Steelers home games. So has Young. He expects their work Sunday will be much of the same as what they did here, including “keeping the area nice and tidy.”
Ronan and Tiernan will attend the game with other family members, including Young’s sister. Marie will watch at home, checking those sideline camera shots.
This will be Young’s first experience on Croke Park’s field.
“It will be the first time I have gotten on the hallowed turf,” Young said. “Only teams of the highest level play there.”
The game will be shown locally on WTAE-TV. Outside of the Pittsburgh market, the broadcast is on NFL Network. Radio-wise, WDVE-FM (102.5), WBGG-AM (970) and the Steelers Nation Radio Network will carry it.
The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership is sponsoring a free big-screen Black & Gold Dublin Watch Party starting at 7:30 a.m. on Sixth Street, Downtown. Pittsburgh Brewing Co. is throwing one in East Deer, too.
PUP’s Randy Stoernell contributed.
Helen is a copy editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but she's currently on strike. Contact her at hfallon@unionprogress.com.