A Dublin bookmaker, a private card club and a handful of fearless players turned a small country into one of poker’s most unlikely powerhouses. Here’s how it happened, and why the tournament they started is bigger than ever.
In May 1999, two Irishmen sat down at the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event at Binion’s Horseshoe. One of them walked away with a million dollars. The other finished third and, by most accounts, enjoyed himself almost as much.
That was the high point of a run that most poker fans outside Ireland still underrate. A small country with a handful of card clubs produced a generation of players who could hold their own in Las Vegas, and the game they helped build is still going strong. These days Irish players move between live festivals, private games and the online casino lobbies of Irish-facing brands like NetBet, which also partners with Dublin club Shamrock Rovers on responsible gambling. Back in the late 1970s, though, hardly anyone in Ireland had heard of Texas hold’em.
A Bookmaker Brings Hold’em Home
The story usually starts with Terry Rogers, a Dublin bookmaker who played no-limit hold’em in Las Vegas during a trip in 1979 and came home convinced the game would catch on. He was right.
Rogers and his friend Liam Flood set up a tournament at the Eccentric Club, a private card club in Dublin and around 1980 the Irish Poker Open was born. The buy-in was £1,000, a serious sum at the time, and Colette Doherty won the first one.
The Eccentric became the training ground for a generation. Players learned the game in long sessions there, picked up each other’s habits and developed a style that was loose, talkative and very hard to read. It wasn’t a quiet room. No, by most accounts the table talk was half the education.
The Swimmer, the Showman and the Champion
Donnacha O’Dea might have the most unusual poker career on the list. He swam for Ireland at the 1968 Olympics, became the first Irish swimmer to break a minute for the 100 meters and then turned to cards. He finished sixth in the WSOP Main Event in 1983, won a Pot Limit Omaha bracelet in 1998 by beating Johnny Chan heads-up and made the November Nine in 2011, decades after his first deep run.
Then there’s Padraig Parkinson, the showman. Quick with a line and quicker with a story, he became one of poker’s best-known characters and his writing about the Irish scene has kept those early days alive for newer fans.
And then 1999. Noel Furlong, a carpet businessman and Eccentric Club regular, beat a field of 393 players to win the Main Event and $1,000,000. Alan Goehring finished second. Parkinson came third for $489,125, with Erik Seidel and Huck Seed also at that final table.
Why the Irish Style Worked
Ask anyone who played with that crowd and the same word keeps coming up. Fearless. The Irish players of that era had learned in a loose, aggressive environment where big bluffs were part of the culture and that style carried over well to Vegas, where plenty of opponents were used to tighter, quieter games.
Andy Black carried that tradition into the poker boom. His fifth-place finish in the 2005 Main Event came in a field of more than 5,600 players, a completely different world from the 393 Furlong faced. The players had changed, the TV cameras had arrived, but the Irish approach still traveled well.
The style also reflected something bigger. Poker in Ireland grew up as a social game first. People played in clubs and back rooms with friends, and the competitive edge came from years of hands against the same sharp faces. Cardplayer Lifestyle’s tribute to Doyle Brunson, another player who learned in tough rooms long before poker was on TV, shows how much that kind of apprenticeship shaped the early greats.
The Irish Open Today
The tournament Rogers and Flood started is now Europe’s longest-running poker festival, and its getting bigger. The 2026 Irish Open Main Event drew a record 5,003 entries and a prize pool of €4,852,910 at the RDS in Dublin. That beat the previous year’s 4,562 entries, and the buy-in has been €1,150 since 2016.
The organizers also announced three new international stops this year, which means the Irish Open brand is heading abroad for the first time. Rogers, who brought the game home from Vegas, would probably have enjoyed the symmetry.
A Legacy Worth Remembering
Most of the early legends have long since stepped back from the tables, but their influence isn’t hard to spot. No, it shows up every Easter weekend in Dublin, when thousands of players pack into the RDS for the oldest Texas Hold’em festival in Europe.
Poker in Ireland has always been about the craic as much as the cards. That’s probably why it has lasted. Whether it’s a home game, a live festival or an online session, the game is strictly for adults, 18 and over in Ireland and the best version of it is the one that stays fun.
So the next time a big final table comes around, keep an eye out for a green flag. History says it usually has a story attached.
