Aer Lingus College Football Classic Ireland began initially in 1988 as part of a promotional campaign to mark the Dublin millennium celebrations. Dubbed the Emerald Isle Classic, it was the first NCAA-sanctioned American college football game played in Europe. The game was played at Lansdowne Road in Dublin, Ireland in the years 1988 and 1989. The event was first proposed and arranged by Aidan J. Prendergast and Jim O'Brien. Prendergast, who was a former president of the Irish American Football Association conceived the idea of bringing a major NCAA game to Ireland in the mid-1980s and started pitching the idea on both sides of the Atlantic. Prendergast promoted both the 1988 and 1989 games. 

The game was intended as an annual event to attract some of the 40 million Americans of Irish descent back to Ireland. College teams with particularly Irish or Catholic background were chosen in an effort to attract Irish nationals to the games.