Openplay Research — Irish Padel Data for Press & Industry

Openplay.ie is an Irish padel retailer, run by Forsaflow Limited in Waterford. We maintain an island-wide padel court tracker, with each venue checked against the operator's own booking system. We also keep a register of every padel planning application in the Republic of Ireland. This page gathers our current figures and published research in one place for journalists, clubs, operators and researchers.

The numbers today

339 open padel courts across 95 venues on the island of Ireland — 223 courts in the Republic, 116 in Northern Ireland. (70 venues in the Republic, 25 in Northern Ireland.)
4.33 open courts per 100,000 people in the Republic (223 courts; CSO Census 2022 population 5,149,139).
Highest county: Limerick, 11.45 courts per 100,000 (24 courts at five venues; shown rounded as 11.5 in the Density League).
146 locations tracked across the island: 95 open, and the rest in build, in planning or awaiting verification.
101 verified courts in the Republic's pipeline (37 venues listed as coming soon, granted planning permission or with an application lodged). Unverified venues are not included.
Planning register (Republic only): since 2017, 222 planning applications have mentioned padel, which group into 171 distinct schemes. Of the 130 schemes decided so far, 22 were refused, a refusal rate of 17%. Source: the planning register.
International comparison, in courts per 100,000: the Republic ~4.33, Britain ~2.2 (LTA, April 2026), Germany ~1.0, the Netherlands ~17.3, Spain ~35.5, Sweden ~40.0. Source and per-country references: How Far Behind Is Ireland?

Court figures are as of 27 September 2026 and were re-checked against a full re-read of the tracker on 28 September 2026. Last updated 28 September 2026.

Research

Who Is Building Ireland's Padel Courts? (2026), 28 September 2026. Sports clubs host 63 of the Republic's 223 open padel courts (28%), at 23 of its 70 open venues. Tennis clubs are the most common club host. Only one open venue is confirmed on a GAA ground (Kinnegad, 2 courts). The study groups the planning register into 164 schemes, a stricter grouping than the register's 171.
The Irish Padel Court Density League 2026, updated 27 September 2026. Limerick is the padel capital of the Republic at 11.5 courts per 100,000 people, more than two and a half times the national average of 4.33. Leitrim, Offaly and Roscommon still have no open court.
How Far Behind Is Ireland? The International Padel Gap in Numbers, updated 27 September 2026. At 4.33 courts per 100,000, the Republic is already ahead of Britain (~2.2). To match the Netherlands' density, it would need around 890 courts.
The State of Padel in Ireland 2026, published June 2026 with court figures updated in September 2026. Irish Google searches for "padel" rose about 23-fold, from ~220 a month in January 2021 to ~5,200 in April 2026 (Ahrefs).
Every Padel Court Planned for Ireland: The Full Planning Register, updated weekly. Since 2017 there have been 222 padel planning applications, which make up 171 distinct schemes. Kildare, Meath and Wicklow have 37 schemes between them, more than Dublin's 36. Republic only.
Ireland's Padel Map, September 2026, our monthly roundup. The island went from 302 open courts at 88 venues on 1 September to 339 at 95. Meath got its first venue.
The Irish Padel Price Index 2026, rates collected 17 July 2026. Peak-time padel in the Republic costs €46–49 per court per hour, averaging €46.20 across the ten venues with fully published peak rates. 17 of the 32 venues checked publish no prices at all.
Find a Padel Court in Ireland, the live map of every venue we track on the island.

Models, not counts. The next two pages are statistical models. Both are marked "Draft for review" and were run on the August 2026 tracker, before September's openings. Please describe their figures as model estimates.

Padel access model, August 2026. It estimated that 1.34 million people in the Republic (26%) lived more than an estimated 30-minute drive from an open court. The page notes that this figure will fall when the model is re-run, which is planned for November 2026.
How many padel courts does Ireland need by 2030?, August 2026, with a baseline of 193 courts. Its base case is that the Republic needs around 510 courts by 2030, against roughly 470 the pipeline could deliver. The projections have not yet been re-run on the September baseline.

Methodology in brief

Open means bookable today. Each venue is checked against Playtomic, Rallyd or the club's own booking system. A court counts only once it can be booked, not when it is announced, granted permission or under construction.
Unverified venues are excluded from every figure.
Population: CSO Census 2022 for the Republic and NISRA Census 2021 for Northern Ireland.
Planning data comes from the National Planning Application Database and covers the Republic only.
Monthly updates. When we get something wrong, the correction is published openly on the page concerned.

Using our data

Our figures are free to cite. Please credit Openplay.ie and link to the page the figure comes from. County breakdowns and the underlying dataset are available on request.

About the founder

Jakub (Jake) Pieczonka is the founder of Openplay.ie and is based in Waterford. He is available for comment on the Irish padel market, how fast courts are being built, and what new players buy.

Press contact

Jakub Pieczonka, Openplay.ie
Email: jakub@openplay.ie
Phone: +353 86 881 3796

As featured in

The Padel Paper, "New report highlights the padel boom in Ireland", 16 July 2026.