cricket

cricket is first recorded as being played in Ireland in August 1792. However, both the ‘Garrison’ and ‘All‐Ireland’ teams which contested the match in Phoenix Park appear to have been composed of visiting Englishmen. Irish cricket clubs, encouraged by officers from local garrisons and schoolboys returning from English schools, were formed from the 1820s in Dublin and Munster. A permanent pitch was established in Dublin from 1838. Ireland's first ever international representative sporting fixture was a cricket match against England in London in 1855. In subsequent years Irish teams toured England and America, and Ireland welcomed numerous teams from England. However, the growing popularity of the sport was curtailed from the 1880s as the Land War soured relations between playing tenantry and sponsoring landlords, and pitches became harder to find. From 1904 the Gaelic Athletic Association's ban on ‘foreign games’ further reduced popular support for cricket. The disruption of the First World War and the withdrawal of British troops accentuated the decline. The focus of Irish cricket shifted to Ulster, where it remains. There are currently about 130 cricket clubs in Ireland, primarily in the larger urban centres. Though an Irish national team defeated the West Indies at Sion Mills, Co. Tyrone, in 1969, this result was entirely unrepresentative.

Neal Garnham