The concession of two quick goals early in the second-half beat Brian Kerr's depleted Irish under-18s in the first of two friendlies against the hosts in Gutersloh last night.
Half-time substitute Sean Thornton got Ireland, who were missing six key players, back into the match with a goal following a Brian Cash free-kick 10 minutes from time.
The Tranmere Rovers midfielder subsequently came close to equalising with a header late on before the Germans broke away and added their third goal from Bayern Munich's Marcus Fuelmer.
Andreas Hinkel of VfB Stuttgart opened the scoring with a fierce shot shortly after the interval before another Bayern player, Florian Heller, made it 2-0 minutes later from a quickly taken free-kick.
"In light of all the players we had missing I wasn't too displeased with our performance," said Kerr.
Ireland: B Murphy (Manchester City); van Zanten (Celtic), C Byrne (Sunderland), Lester (Everton), D Murphy (QPR); Rossiter (Sunderland), Gamble (Reading), Field (Celtic), Cash (Nottingham Forest); Doyle (Blackburn Rovers), McNamara (Nottingham Forest). Subs: Thornton (Tranmere Rovers) for Field (half-time), Murray (Blackburn Rovers) for Lester (60 mins.), Martin (UCD) for McNamara (67 mins.), J Byrne (VFL Kirchhein) for Rossiter (80 mins.).
