Ireland

The first mention of modern cricket in Ireland was in 1731 when the Military of Ireland and the Gentlemen of Ireland took each other on in the Phoenix Park, where the game still thrives in one of the world's oldest established cricket clubs. However, the origins of Cricket may, in fact, have come from Ireland, via the ancient Gaelic game of 'Katty', a precursor to the modern game of Rounders in Ireland. Katty was exported around the world by Irishmen serving in the British Army and the game was adopted as both a training and recreational activity by British Army soldiers.

The evolution of Katty in the empire is reflected in the use of anglicised Gaelic terms such as crioc, crios, bail, googly, still used in cricket as we know it today. Modern Cricket was introduced to Ireland by the English in the towns of Kilkenny and Ballinasloe in the early 19th century. In the 1830s, the game began to spread; many of the clubs which were founded in the following 30 years are still in existence today.

The first Irish national team played in 1855 against The Gentlemen of England in Dublin. In the 1850s, the Englishman Charles Lawrence was responsible for developing the game in Ireland through his coaching. In the 1850s and 1860s, Ireland was visited for the first time by touring professional teams.

) was in 1858. Cricket had flourished throughout the Ireland until the early 1880s. However, the Irish Land War, the Gaelic Revival cultural movement and its offshoot the Gaelic Athletic Association, founded in 1884, began to challenge the popularity of cricket.

There were widespread calls to establish a national cricketing union in Ireland the 1870s to oversee the sport but landlords who owned the estates on which cricket was predominantly played declined to do so, many believing the game would distract their tenant farmers from working and thus impact the estates' income at a time when the land war was already depleting landlords wealth. One of those to call for a formal body to organise cricket was Michael Cusack, later the founder of the GAA. Cusack, was a keen cricketer, later tried to organise cricket under the umbrella of the newly formed Gaelic Athletic Association.

His motion, however, lost out narrowly. Consequently, in 1902 cricket fell under the GAA's newly introduced Law 27 banning its members from playing "foreign", in practice, British, games.