- ✓In Ireland the IPL is on Sky Sports — stream it in English through a NOW membership, no VPN needed.
- ✓For the Indian JioHotstar feed (Hindi and regional commentary), you need an Indian IP from a VPN plus a JioHotstar account.
- ✓The IPL is no longer free even in India — the free JioCinema years ended before IPL 2025, so JioHotstar is a paid plan now.
- ✓The season runs roughly late March to late May each year — around 74 matches over two months.
- ✓A VPN reaches the feed you subscribe to. It won’t make the IPL free, and we won’t pretend it does.
The quick answer
In Ireland, the IPL is on Sky Sports — you can stream the English-language coverage through a NOW membership without a dish or a contract. If the feed you actually want is the Indian one — JioHotstar, with Hindi and regional commentary — that’s geo-locked to India, so you connect a VPN to an India server for an Indian IP and sign in to your JioHotstar account. Both routes are paid; the IPL isn’t free any more, even in India.
Sky via NOW for the English feed · a VPN set to India for the JioHotstar feed · both are paid subscriptions.
The two IPL feeds, and which you want
This is the choice that decides everything else:
- Sky Sports (English) — no VPN needed. Sky holds the exclusive IPL and WPL rights in the UK and Ireland, on Sky Sports Cricket and Main Event. Stream it via a NOW Sports membership — a day pass for a single big game, or a month for the run-in. This is the effortless route for most viewers here.
- JioHotstar (Indian) — VPN required. The Indian broadcast, with the commentary and presentation the Indian and South Asian community grew up on, lives on JioHotstar and is locked to India. A VPN with an India server gives you the Indian IP it needs; you’ll also need a JioHotstar plan.
Neither is “better” — it’s about the commentary and feel you want. Plenty of fans in Ireland happily watch on Sky; plenty specifically want JioHotstar. This guide gets you to whichever one you’re after.
When the IPL is on
The IPL is a two-month festival, not a one-off, so it’s worth planning your subscription around it. The season runs roughly from late March to late May each year — around 74 matches among 10 teams, building to the playoffs and final. IPL 2026, for instance, ran from 28 March to 31 May across 13 venues. Exact dates move year to year around the international calendar and the T20 World Cup, so check the official schedule before you commit to a plan.
The practical upshot: a monthly Sky/NOW pass or a JioHotstar plan comfortably covers a big chunk of the tournament, and a generous VPN money-back window (up to 45 days on CyberGhost) can cover a full season if you’re only in it for the IPL.
The honest bit
We won’t oversell what a VPN does for the IPL. It gives you an Indian IP so you can reach the JioHotstar feed you’ve paid for — nothing more. The days of free IPL streaming ended when JioCinema’s free model closed before IPL 2025, so there’s no legitimate way to watch the whole tournament for nothing. Every route here — Sky via NOW, or JioHotstar via a VPN — involves a real subscription. A VPN never justifies a pirate stream, and this guide isn’t about those.
Watch the JioHotstar feed, step by step
This is the Indian-feed route, where the VPN does the work — about four minutes end to end:
- 1Set up your JioHotstar account first
While you’re still on your normal Irish connection, sign in to (or create) a JioHotstar account and pick a plan — mobile plans start around ₹79/month. Some sign-up steps expect an Indian mobile number, so it’s easiest to sort this before you connect the VPN.
- 2Get a VPN with an India server
You need a provider that offers an Indian IP. NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Surfshark, Proton VPN and CyberGhost all do — see our cricket ranking below. Since 2022 these are virtual India servers, which stream exactly the same.
- 3Connect to India
Open the VPN app, sign in, and connect to the India location. You now have an Indian IP, so JioHotstar treats you as a local viewer.
- 4Open JioHotstar and play
Launch JioHotstar, sign in, choose the match and press play. Connect a few minutes before the toss — a marquee IPL game is peak traffic.
Which VPNs work
The job is a reliable India server that gets past JioHotstar’s VPN detection, fast enough for a live run-chase. From our cricket testing, NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Surfshark, Proton VPN and CyberGhost all handle it. Our top three:
See the full table and our India-server speed tests in the best VPN for cricket & Hotstar ranking, or our overall best VPN for Ireland ranking. For the wider picture, see how to watch cricket in Ireland.
Devices & match-day tips
- Phone-first? Most IPL viewing in Ireland happens on a phone — install the VPN app, connect to India, open JioHotstar. Two taps.
- On the big screen: install the VPN app on a Fire TV Stick, Android TV or Apple TV, connect to India, then open JioHotstar. Samsung and LG smart TVs can’t run a VPN app — run it on your router or cast from your phone.
- Connect before the toss and test the stream; a marquee IPL night is peak traffic on JioHotstar.
- Buffering or blocked? Switch to another India server and reload — our slow-VPN fix and won’t-connect fix apply here too.