Abstract

Legacy has been conventionally divided in two: ‘hard’ or ‘soft’, ‘tangible’ or ‘intangible’. The terms ‘hard’ and ‘tangible’ are more or less interchangeable and their binary opposites ‘soft’ and ‘intangible’ have tended to be treated in the same way. Hard legacy is the more obvious and easily understood of the two, although its different manifestations are varied, complex and interconnected. The most obvious type of hard legacy is the stadium and attendant sporting facilities and buildings for athletes, including training facilities and accommodation. This differs, with the Olympic Games requiring multiple sporting venues and a special ‘Olympic Village’, whereas for the World Cup national teams use multiple stadia of similar design and stay in private hotels. Stadia play a major part in this study, from Mussolini’s Rome to Croke Park in Dublin or the Olympic stadia in Stockholm and Helsinki. This kind of material legacy, however, is not confined to sport itself and is increasingly part of a much broader project of urban development or regeneration. It is not enough to provide the facilities for the athletes and spectators; mega sporting events are almost always both national and international. […] As Mike Cronin shows, in the case of Croke Park, it is not only the greats of Gaelic games who are remembered there but also the martyrs of the Anglo-Irish War. Croke Park is not simply an iconic sporting site but a place of Irish national memory. Hence the symbolic importance of its recent temporary use for international rugby, with Ireland hosting England in what formerly would have been an unthinkable departure from its patriotic purpose. Ireland has evolved with the ‘peace process’ and so has the stadium. Cultural legacies are complex, varied and changing and a stadium needs to be understood in terms of what it ‘means’ as well as what it does. Aus der Einleitung des Sammelbandes