Early years
Rugby School’s former pupil RH Scott founded a club at Trinity in 1854, some 13 years later Trinity second XV were playing games against St. Columba’s College and Hume High Street, two Leinster schools and, importantly for the game in the north of the country, Royal School, Dungannon. When an official set of rules were adopted a year later (1868) rugby football began to spread rapidly through Ireland.
On the 15th February 1875 Ireland lost their first international test match against England 7-0. It took them 6 years before they won a test, in 1881 against Scotland in Belfast.
In 1884 Ireland turned up two men short for their game in Cardiff and had to borrow a couple of Welsh players!
In 1894 for the first time, Ireland followed the Welsh model of using seven backs instead of six. They went on to win the Home international championship three times before the old century was out (1894, 1896 and 1899), so that by 1900 all four of the Home Unions had tasted success at a game that was growing in popularity with players and spectators.
In the early days Rugby was a protestant middle class game, the only Catholic in Edmund Forrest’s 1894 team was Tom Crean. Of the eighteen players used in the three games, thirteen were from three Dublin clubs Wanderers, Dublin University and Bective Rangers and the remaining five were from Ulster.
In 1926 Ireland went into their final Five Nations match unbeaten and with the Grand Slam at stake lost to Wales in Swansea.