Best Supported Premier League Teams In Ireland

Posted By: Lucky May 1, 2025

It is fair to say that the island of Ireland can sometimes be a divided place. Between religious and cultural subjects, both Northern and Republican Ireland can find things to disagree on a regular basis, though thankfully not with the same violent fervour that we have seen in the past.

Perhaps one of the few things that the Irish from both sides of the border can agree on, though, is the fact that the Premier League is one of the best divisions in the world, resulting in millions of people on the Emerald Isle supporting an English team. The question is, which teams garner the most support?

Why People From Ireland Support English Teams

liverpool walk of champions anfield displaying 13 european trophies won by the club

Although there will undoubtedly be some who are so stuck to their notion of being anti-English that they will refuse to support an English football team, there are doubtless many hundreds of thousands of Irish and Northern Irish people who choose to follow a team from England. There can be many reasons for this, not the least of which is because their parents or other family members have supported a team historically and so they have followed in their footsteps. Mostly, though, people tend to support teams that are successful when they are young and in their formative years.

Whether we like it or not, there is something to be said for following a team that wins stuff. It is hard work to spend your life following a team that rarely wins a trophy, which is why Everton supporters are often referred to as ‘bitter’ by those that spend any degree of time with them. If you are a young person heading to school, you don’t really want to have to be mocked and laughed at by your friends because your football team is rubbish, so you will instead latch on to the most successful ones that are playing the game at the time that you’re starting to get into the sport in your spare time.

How the Figures are Calculated

Different people will tell you different things when it comes to working out which teams are the most supported on the island of Ireland, which is why it is important to use facts and figures where possible. That is precisely what Adaptive & Co have looked to do, asking three questions:

  • Which teams have the highest level of support in the Republic of Ireland?
  • Why are certain teams supported by people of a certain age?
  • Can any predictions about future support be worked out from the current information?

In order to answer these questions, Adaptive & Co used data from Meta, which is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, in order to look to see which audiences were being targeted for the likes of adverts. As you can see, though, the data very specifically looks at the Republic of Ireland, which has to be borne in mind when looking at the figures and translating them for the entirety of Ireland.

Liverpool & Manchester United

Any data that you look at for the Republic of Ireland shows that Liverpool and Manchester United are easily the most supported teams in the country. When Adaptive & Co looked at the data, it showed that the Merseyside club has 443,500 supporters, with their fierce rivals coming in a close second thanks to the 441,000 people that support the Red Devils. To give an indication of just how dominant that is in terms of support, the next closest are Chelsea, who have 254,000 supporters, and Arsenal, who boast 246,400 fans in the Republic of Ireland.

When you think about the fact that it is common for people to support the most successful clubs of their youth or to support sides that their family members support, it isn’t that surprising to see Liverpool and United top the rankings. After all, Liverpool were the dominant side in the 1970s and 1980s, whilst Manchester United took over the reins in the 1990s and 2000s. There are also other reasons why people across the island of Ireland might support one or another of the clubs, with the likes of Brendan Rodgers and Roy Keane managing and playing for the two clubs, respectively.

@everythingloi A Completely Unsarcastic Guide to: Irish Liverpool/Man United Fans #leagueofireland #liverpool #manchesterunited #sarcasm #guideto #comedy #ireland #irish #fans #premierleague #footballtiktok #footballfyp ♬ original sound – EverythingLeagueOfIreland

Then there is the fact that hundreds of thousands of people left Ireland in order to head to England, settling in cities like Manchester and Liverpool. After doing so, they will still have had family on the Emerald Isle with whom they would doubtless have kept in touch, perhaps even sending them the likes of football memorabilia that would have gone some way to persuading them to pick one side over another when it came to deciding upon their allegiance. Manchester United are enduring a tough time of it at present, so whether their support in Northern Ireland and the Republic endures remains to be seen.