County Carlow Football Club is a rugby club in

Carlow Carlow ( ; ) is the county town of County Carlow, in the south-east of Ireland, from Dublin. At the 2016 census, it had a combined urban and rural population of 24,272. The River Barrow flows through the town and forms the historic bounda ...

County Carlow County Carlow ( ; ga, Contae Cheatharlach) is a county located in the South-East Region of Ireland, within the province of Leinster. Carlow is the second smallest and the third least populous of Ireland's 32 traditional counties. Carlow Cou ...

, Ireland, playing in Division 1B of the Leinster League. The club was founded in October 1873, and is one of the oldest rugby clubs in Ireland. As was usual in the days preceding the development of Gaelic football and soccer and prior to the foundation of the Rugby Football Union, the earlier clubs were known simply as "football clubs" with no mention of rugby in the title. The County Carlow club was formed, therefore, (and is correctly known) as ''"County Carlow Football Club."''

History

The club was constituted at a meeting in the Club House Hotel, Carlow in October 1873. It was to be known as the County Carlow Football Club. The founder, Colonel

Horace Rochfort Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his '' ...

of Clogrennan, County Carlow, was elected the first president. The club colours were registered as black and amber. Colonel Rochfort, a landowner of approximately in Dublin, Laois and

was a keen sportsman of the time. He was also the founder of the County Carlow Cricket Club in 1831, and the founder and first secretary of the

All Ireland Polo Club All or ALL may refer to: Language * All, an indefinite pronoun in English * All, one of the English determiners * Allar language (ISO 639-3 code) * Allative case (abbreviated ALL) Music * All (band), an American punk rock band * ''All'' (All ...

in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, in 1873, having founded the County Carlow Polo Club in 1872. County Carlow Football Club played unofficially for the first 25 years of its existence, with Trinity ( Dublin University), Wanderers and Kingstown providing the most frequent early opposition. Fixtures with Bective and Lansdowne were recorded in the 1880s, and in the late 1880s the formation of

Athy Athy ( ; ) is a market town at the meeting of the River Barrow and the Grand Canal in south-west County Kildare, Ireland, 72 kilometres southwest of Dublin. A population of 9,677 (as of the 2016 census) makes it the sixth largest town in Kild ...

, Baltinglass, Carlow College (1882) and Portarlington College provided an alternative opposition to the Dublin clubs and heralded the early days of provincial rugby.O'Brien, Thomas J. (Editor) - ''County Carlow Football Club, Rugby History 1873 - 1977''

1977 Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democratic R ...

/ref> Affiliation of County Carlow FC to the

Leinster Branch Leinster Rugby ( ga, Rugbaí Laighean) is one of the four professional provincial rugby union teams from the island of Ireland and the most successful Irish team domestically. They compete in the United Rugby Championship and the European Rugby ...

of the IRFU was achieved on 1 December 1899 when it was proposed by T.Thornhill of Wanderers and seconded by J.B. Moore of Lansdowne. Hence the club became eligible to compete in the Leinster Junior Challenge Cup, which they won in 1904, becoming the first provincial club to do so. County Carlow FC won the Junior Cup on four subsequent occasions before the competition was restructured to become the Provincial Towns Cup in 1926. County Carlow FC have appeared in 16 finals of the Provincial Towns Cup and were victorious on 12 occasions - (the most appearances and the most wins by any club). In 1997, they became the first club ever to achieve the Provincial Cup and League double. The Provincial League win of that year earned them a place in the All Ireland Round Robin qualifier competition with Midleton (Munster), Connemara (Connaught) and Omagh Academicals (Ulster). County Carlow won the play off, and became a senior club for the first time in its history for the 1997/1998 season. In 1997/1998 - their first season as a senior club - County Carlow FC won Division 4 of the All Ireland League. Promotion to Division 2 was achieved two years later, and by the end of the 2000/2001 season they attained Division 1 status, finishing second in Division 2 to UCD. Historically, County Carlow FC won the Leinster Senior Cup in 2003, becoming the only club to have won both the Provincial Towns Cup and the Leinster Senior Cup.''Irish Rugby : Co Carlow Create History''
16 May 2003 Accessed 15 April 2008 The win in 2003 was also the first time in the 120-year history of the competition that the Leinster Senior Cup was won by a non-Dublin club. This historic win was repeated in 2004 when County Carlow FC recorded back to back wins, beating DLS Palmerston in the final on both occasions. County Carlow FC played for 5 consecutive seasons in Division 1 but were relegated to Division 2 for the 2006/2007 season and subsequently to

Division 3 In sport, the Third Division, also called Division 3, Division Three, or Division III, is often the third-highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Association football * Belgian Th ...

for the 2007/2008 season. The club currently plays in Division 1B of the Leinster Senior League.

Club honours

* Leinster Senior Cup (2) 2003, 2004 *

AIB League The All-Ireland League (AIL), known for sponsorship reasons as the Energia All-Ireland League, is the national league system for the 50 senior rugby union clubs in Ireland, covering both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The league w ...

Division 4 (1) 1998 * Navan 10-a-side (1) 2002 * Leinster Junior Challenge Cup (5) 1904, 1912, 1913, 1919, 1922 * Provincial Towns Cup (12) 1929, 1931, 1933, 1957, 1961, 1965, 1977, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997 * Provincial Towns Plate (4) 1964, 1968, 1971, 1973 * South East Cup (8) 1975, 1976, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1996 * IRFU Award Top Club in Leinster 1993 * IRFU Award Top non-league club in Ireland 1997

References

External links

County Carlow Football Club

Irish Sporting Heritage
{{Irish rugby links 1873 in Ireland Irish rugby union teams Rugby clubs established in 1873 Rugby union clubs in County Carlow Sport in Carlow (town)