County Carlow Football Club is a rugby club in Carlow, County Carlow, 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 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 Carlow 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 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, Baltinglass, Carlow College (1882) and Portarlington College provided an alternative opposition to the Dublin clubs and heralded the early days of provincial rugby. Affiliation of County Carlow FC to the Leinster Branch 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