Originally Posted by
EatYerGreens
Plus football is by and large an urban sport.
Of the Top 10 population centres in the ROI - Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford, Drogheda, Swords, Dundalk, Bray, Navan - only 2 don't themselves have an LOI club. And of them - Swords was essentially covered by Sporting Fingal, and Navan is arguably covered by Drogheda United.
The 11th biggest population centre - Kilkenny city - tried but failed to sustain an LOI club, as did the 15th biggest (Newbridge).
So in a country who's urban centres aren't generally big, it's hard to see where there realistically are obvious candidates for an LOI team to prosper which either don't already have one, or haven't previously tried and failed.