It has been announced that boyband One Direction will play Dublin’s Croke Park as part of their ‘Where We Are’ world tour.

Bandmates Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson revealed the details of their upcoming gigs at London’s Wembley Arena in front of 100 media. The boys will visit at least 10 countries during their whirlwind tour and will include stopovers in Peru, Brazil and Chile. Speaking about their world tour today, the boys expressed excitement at the prospect of travelling to South America because of its beaches packed with bikini-clad babes.

Liam said, “There’s a fact here, thongs are common place (in Brazil). So I think that’s something to look forward to. We can’t wait, Brazil’s an amazing place.”

"And they're big into carnivals out there so we'll be partying with the Brazilians," added Niall.

But for Mullingar-born Niall Horan, playing Croke Park will be a particularly special highlight of the tour. Following the steps of acts such as U2, Take That, and Westlife, the band will perform to 80,000 fans on May 24, 2014 at the GAA venue. One Direction previously played four sell out concerts at Dublin’s O2 in February and March but Horan told the Irish Independent that it will be an historic moment in his career when he walks out onto the Croke Park Stage.

"We're really excited about this, it's going to be so much fun and is bigger than ever before," he said.

The tour will kick off on April 25 in Bogota, Columbia, before heading across South America and reaching the UK and Ireland in May and June where they will play to thousands of fans in gigs at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium, Wembley Stadium and Dublin’s Croke Park. More dates will be announced in the coming weeks. Tickets for the UK and Ireland dates go on sale on Saturday May 25, 2013 at 10am.