Live from Ireland: Carolina beats TCU
Follow updates as the Tar Heels participate in research, public service and other events ahead of the Aer Lingus College Football Classic.
DUBLIN — Carolina leaders, student-athletes, fans and alumni are arriving in Ireland ahead of the Tar Heels’ football season opener against Texas Christian University as part of the Aer Lingus College Football Classic.
This week, the Carolina community will take part in a range of activities and events that span research, education, public service, business, innovation and the arts. It’s part of making the week in Dublin “Much More Than a Game.”
Throughout the week, Lee Pace, a longtime Carolina football writer and sideline reporter, will be sharing updates from events around Ireland. Follow along here for more.
3:30 p.m. ET, 8:30 p.m. Ireland time, Saturday, Aug. 29
Carolina is bringing home a win from Ireland.
The Tar Heels beat TCU 15-10 on Saturday in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic to open the season with a victory.
Read more about the week in Ireland in this story, and read about the game in this recap.
Bill Belichick holds the trophy from the Aer Lingus College Football Classic after the Tar Heels beat TCU. (Jeffrey Camarati/GoHeels)
Kaleb Cost and the Carolina defense held TCU scoreless for the final 49 minutes of the game. (Jeffrey Camarati/GoHeels)
Benjamin Hall runs with the ball during the Tar Heels’ victory. (Jeffrey Camarati/GoHeels)
Billy Edwards Jr. threw for 232 yards in his first start for the Tar Heels. (Jeffrey Camarati/GoHeels)
12:30 p.m. ET, 5:30 p.m. Ireland time, Saturday, Aug. 29
The game is underway! Watch video below of the official coin toss before the game began.
11 a.m. ET, 4 p.m. Ireland time, Saturday, Aug. 29
The live Rameses mascot couldn’t make the international trip, but thankfully a friend stepped in.
Seamus is from a farm in Ireland and donning the blue horns and the Carolina Blue jacket for today’s Aer Lingus College Football Classic.
Consider Seamus to be Rameses’ Irish “cousin.” (UNC-Chapel Hill)
10 a.m. ET, 3 p.m. Ireland time, Saturday, Aug. 29
Carolina’s football team spent part of its time in Ireland teaching local children American football skills and learning about traditional Irish sports.
On Aug. 28, the Tar Heels visited Ballyboden St. Enda’s GAA Club for the clinic.
Photos by Eakin Howard, Sportsfile
8 a.m. ET, 1 p.m. Ireland time, Saturday, Aug. 29
The game day festivities are underway.
Chancellor Lee H. Roberts hosted a game day brunch at Trinity College Dublin with Provost Magnus Egerstedt, Director of Athletics Steve Newmark and other leaders.
Photos by Jeffrey Camarati, GoHeels
7:30 a.m. ET, 12:30 p.m. Ireland time, Saturday, Aug. 29
It’s finally game day.
Carolina football takes on TCU at noon ET, 5 p.m. Dublin time to kick off the season in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic.
Learn more about the game on GoHeels and watch the video below for some key things to watch for.
5 p.m. ET, 10 p.m. Ireland time, Friday, Aug. 28
Before Saturday’s game, take time to revisit the week.
Read about how Carolina came to participate in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic, the critical research and collaboration events from the past week and more in this story from Lee Pace.
4 p.m. ET, 9 p.m. Ireland time, Friday, Aug. 28
Carolina scored a big victory in Dublin.
The women’s soccer team blanked Shelbourne FC 3-0 in an exhibition Friday night behind goals from Scottie Antonucci, Summer Denigan and Bella Devey.
Photos by Jeffrey Camarati, GoHeels
The matchup was the most attended women’s match ever at Dublin’s Tolka Park, which opened in 1924.
The football team plays TCU at noon ET, 5 p.m. Ireland time Saturday in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic.
3 p.m. ET, 8 p.m. Ireland time, Friday, Aug. 28
(Jeffrey Camarati/GoHeels)
A special guest was on hand for Carolina’s women’s soccer exhibition against Shelbourne FC.
Jim Phillips, commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, attended the game at Tolka Park.
This is the second time in the past three years an ACC school has played in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic. Next time, Pittsburgh will play Wisconsin in the game.
2 p.m. ET, 7 p.m. Ireland time, Friday, Aug. 28
Bill Belichick was certainly close to hitting the wall along with his staff and players early Thursday evening in Dublin. They had traveled all night, arrived in Dublin Thursday morning, then conducted a full football practice and were trying to stay awake as long as possible to get their internal time clocks set to local time.
Still, Belichick had a sense of humor speaking to a group of Carolina fans and Rams Club supporters about the two main rules he’d been drilling into his team leading to what would be the first international excursion for more than half of them.
No. 1, don’t forget your passport and don’t lose it.
“And No. 2,” Belichick said, then looked to two of his players in attendance, running back Ben Hall and linebacker Derek McDonald, to provide the answer:
“Look right, then left,” they both answered to a round of laughter from the group.
Indeed, travelers to countries where motorists drive on the left side of the road offer a challenge. Crossing a street, you have to look the opposite way from what you’re accustomed to. The result of being sloppy can be disastrous.
“We’ve made a few of these international trips before,” Belichick said, referencing five trips his New England Patriots teams had made overseas. “We know the challenges and have a pretty good system down. So far everything has gone smoothly and according to plan. Now it’s time to play some football.”
10:30 a.m. ET, 3:30 p.m. Ireland time, Friday, Aug. 28
The Aer Lingus College Football Classic festivities kicked off in earnest Thursday evening with a welcome reception at Dublin City Hall.
Mascots Rameses and RJ joined the mascots from TCU and the ALCFC and Carolina’s band and cheerleaders as the Tar Heels get set for their Saturday game.
At the reception, Chancellor Lee H. Roberts presented Lord Mayor of Dublin Daryl Barron with a gift — a replica of the Old Well. Roberts and TCU Chancellor Daniel W. Pullin also received commemorative plates.
Photos by Don Van Sant, Aer Lingus College Football Classic
10 a.m. ET, 3 p.m. Ireland time, Friday, Aug. 28
Provost Magnus Egerstedt visited the women’s soccer team at its practice in Dublin on Thursday.
(Hannah Rady/UNC-Chapel Hill)
It’s game day for the Carolina women’s soccer team.
The ninth-ranked Tar Heels play an exhibition against Shelbourne FC tonight at Tolka Park. Kick off is at 7 p.m. Ireland time, 2 p.m. ET.
Streaming is available for free online. Instructions are available on GoHeels.
9:30 a.m. ET, 2:30 p.m. Ireland time, Friday, Aug. 28
Leaders from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy spent time in Cork and Dublin meeting with pharmacy educators and researchers, pharmaceutical industry leaders. and healthcare innovators. (Submitted photo/Kieran O’Reilly)
Leaders from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy saw the Aer Lingus College Football Classic as a chance to look toward the future.
Ireland has developed into a global pharmaceutical and life sciences hub. That made it a logical place to explore how Carolina, together with partners in Ireland, prepare future generations of healthcare leaders and improve human health around the world.
“This trip gave us the opportunity to build meaningful relationships with educators, researchers, and industry leaders in Ireland,” said Kim Brouwer, W.R. Kenan, Jr., Distinguished Professor and interim dean. “These connections will create new opportunities for strategic collaborations, innovation, and global learning for our students and faculty.”
Read more in this story from Mariava Phillips.
4 p.m. ET, 9 p.m. Ireland time, Thursday, Aug. 27
The Carolina Bluegrass Band’s time in Dublin is off to a good start.
The band performed at the Royal Irish Music Academy Thursday with Rhiannon Giddens on banjo and Justin Harrington on bones. This performance came at the end of the symposium “Songlines: Memory, Reclamation, and Repair in Ireland and the American South,” at which Giddens was the plenary speaker.
The performance was impromptu, and after a short run-through of the chords, they launched into “Lights in the Valley,” with Giddens encouraging the crowd to sing the refrains.
3:30 p.m. ET, 8:30 p.m. Ireland time, Thursday, Aug. 27
Several Carolina leaders spend part of their day at Trinity College Dublin. Among those who visited were:
- Magnus Egerstedt, executive vice chancellor and provost
- Penny Gordon-Larsen, vice chancellor for research
- Barbara Stephenson, vice chancellor for global affairs
- María Estorino, University librarian
- Kim Brouwer, interim dean of UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy
- Devin Duncan, student body president.
1 p.m. ET, 6 p.m. Ireland time, Thursday, Aug. 27
You can never get enough Carolina — even 3,600 miles from Chapel Hill.
“I am always amazed at the permutations of Carolina grads and the Tar Heel community,” says Mary Margaret Frank, dean of UNC Kenan-Flager Business School. “Everywhere you look, you find a Carolina grad accomplishing great things.”
To wit, here in Dublin, Frank and David Gardner were among the featured speakers at Investicon, an adjunct program of the Aer Lingus College Football Classic. Frank, a native of Winston-Salem, holds undergrad, graduate and doctoral degrees from Carolina in the 1990s and was appointed dean in 2023. Gardner, a Washington, D.C., native, is a 1988 Carolina grad in English and comparative literature and went on to co-found The Motley Fool, a stock advisory newsletter that was one of the pioneers in the early internet frontier of the 1990s.
And Dean Frank is a hometown friend of Gardner’s wife, also named Margaret.
Thursday, they shared a laugh over Frank as a young Carolina graduate living in Washington in the early 1990s visiting the Gardner home.
“At the time, David’s newsletter was printed on purple paper stock and had little Shakespeare quotes in the margins,” Frank remembers. “I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Then we had dinner at their house and David was in his office above the garage. He was playing around with something called the internet. That was the very early days of AOL.”
How things have evolved.
Mary Margaret Frank and David Gardner pose for a photo at Investicon in Dublin on Aug. 27. (Lee Pace)
Frank spoke on her expertise — taxes and how they affect investing. She also gave the audience the tricks to her being able to retire early before taking the dean’s post at Kenan-Flager: “Start investing early, diversify, have a long horizon and always watch fees and taxes.”
Gardner signed copies of his latest book, “Rule Breaker Investing,” and gave the audience some insight into his ability to pick winning stocks over three-plus decades.
8 a.m. ET, 1 p.m. Ireland time, Thursday, Aug. 27
The Carolina women’s soccer team has been busy since its Tuesday arrival in Dublin. They visited Causey Farms, where they hung out with animals, and have been practicing ahead of Friday’s exhibition against Shelbourne FC.
On Thursday morning, they had two special guests at practice: Magnus Egerstedt, executive vice chancellor and provost and an avid soccer fan, and Chancellor Lee H. Roberts.
View this post on Instagram
4 p.m. ET, 9 p.m. Ireland time, Wednesday, Aug. 26
Downtown Dublin is all about history and architecture and finding fun spots for a meal or beverage. The outskirts are where you can experience the innate beauty of Ireland.
One popular spot as the Aer Lingus College Football Classic gears up this week is an excursion to the village of Howth, located on cliffs a dozen miles east of Dublin along the Irish Sea. Pronounced “hoath” (rhymes with “growth”), the village is renowned for its cliff walks.
Running back Benjamin Hall was one of five Tar Heels who traveled to Ireland in the spring on a promotional and fact-finding tour leading up to Saturday’s game against TCU. One of their adventures was to Howth, where each of the Tar Heels donned woolen caps and sweaters.
“Going to Howth was probably my favorite part of the trip,” Hall says. “It was beautiful to see that part of Ireland, see the water stretch out to the horizon and look at all the little islands, each with their own story. Most of us had never traveled outside the country, so it was a good experience to know what to expect.”
Photos by Lee Pace.
3 p.m. ET, 8 p.m. Ireland time, Tuesday, Aug. 25
Within a few hundred yards in any direction of the medieval Dublin area south of the River Liffey where the Carolina football team and traveling party will be staying this week is a park named for St. Stephen, a cathedral named for St. Patrick and pubs and eateries named for Thomas Moore, O’Neill’s, Molly and Flanagan.
You can ride bicycles or be pulled in a horse-drawn carriage. You can shop for Irish linen, wool driving caps and trinkets with leprechauns and four-leaf clovers. You can listen to haunting folk ballads played on fiddles and flutes in smoky pubs or find acoustic pop covers by street musicians.
It’s all quite festive and colorful as the fans from the U.S. begin descending on Dublin for Saturday’s opening kickoff of the 2026 college football season.
It’s Carolina vs. TCU at 5 p.m. Dublin time, noon in North Carolina.
“I’ve never played football outside the United States,” says Carolina running back Demon June. “It’s a blessing to have the opportunity to go with guys you’ve put in all the work over winter, spring, the offseason. We get to go overseas and play the game we love.”
Photos by Lee Pace.
Keep scrolling to learn more about everything happening this week in Dublin.
Trip to Ireland is ‘Much More Than a Game’
Carolina faculty and staff will host and participate in several events designed to build relationships and identify opportunities for longer-term collaboration with Irish and European counterparts.
Read more about how the Tar Heels are turning Ireland Carolina Blue.
Carolina-Ireland connections
Did you know UNC-Chapel Hill’s first leader was Irish?
Carolina’s ties with Ireland go back centuries and involve study abroad experiences, visits from famous speakers and musicians and student-athletes who hail from Ireland.
Read more about these connections.
Women’s soccer exhibition
Football isn’t the only Carolina team in Ireland this week. The women’s soccer team arrived in Dublin Tuesday ahead of its exhibition match Friday against Shelbourne FC.
