The largest World Cup communities living in Ireland are the Polish and English. According to figures from the Department of Social and Community Affairs, there are 116,206 Poles currently residing in Ireland. And while there are only 14,318 people living in Ireland who classify themselves as being English, it seems likely that a large percentage of the 80,498 British people living in Ireland hail from England.

The presence of so many people from the 32 competing countries has led to a surge of interest in sportswear, with sports shops reporting large increases in the numbers of non-Irish football jerseys being sold. All major sports retailers contacted by the Sunday Tribune reported a large increase in the number of Polish jerseys being sold.

According to David Beneke, assistant manager of Elvery's on Suffolk Street, Dublin, new communities in Ireland are snapping up their countries' jerseys in advance of the World Cup, which is now just 26 days away. "The Polish jerseys are selling very well and Nike actually sold out of Australian jerseys so we haven't been able to get any of them in", he says.

"It's unfortunate that Nigeria didn't make it to the World Cup because we would have expected to sell a lot of their jerseys.

Even though Ireland didn't qualify, the different demographics of the country means there is still a lot of interest in the competition".

Arnotts have the jerseys of seven competing nations for sale, including Poland and Croatia, and say that there has been a large increase this year in the number of non-Irish purchasing jerseys.

Both Elvery's and Arnotts say that Brazil remains the most popular football jersey, although these are most likely bought by Irish people. Elvery's have bought in "truckloads" of Brazil jerseys in preparation for the World Cup, while the rise of Portuguese and Dutch players in the Premiership have made the jerseys of those countries popular too.

However, according to Mark McHale, manager of Lifestyle Sports in the Jervis Centre, not everybody appreciates the Holland jersey. "The Dutch jersey is a lovely jersey but we have trouble selling it because of its colour [orange]", he says. "A lot of people have said that they wouldn't buy it because of that".

Another jersey that shops struggle to sell is the one worn by our close neighbours England.

Despite the huge popularity of the English Premiership and the adulation bestowed on players such as Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard every weekend by thousands of Irish people, it appears as though the English national team remains largely ignored.

"Premiership jerseys are hugely popular but the England national jersey would not be of interest to our customers", said an Arnotts spokeswoman.

Likewise, Elvery's find their attempts to sell the Three Lions frustrated. "We have some of the red England jerseys, which are actually really nice jerseys, but we find it very hard to sell them.

We've only sold one that I can remember, and that was to a tourist".

"We don't have any England jerseys for sale", says McHale of Lifestyle Sports. "We had a few a couple of years ago but we ended up having to sell them off for 10 just to get rid of them. You can sell anything for a tenner . . . people would buy them just to wash their cars with".