College Park, Dublin

College Park is a cricket ground in the grounds of Trinity College, Dublin in Ireland and is the home ground of Dublin University Cricket Club. A cricket match at Trinity College was mentioned in a poem 1820s between a team from Ballinasloe playing "the Collegians", although whether this match was played on the present ground is not known. The first recorded mention of cricket on the present ground dates from 1868, when Ireland played an All-England Eleven in a non first-class fixture.The ground is where Dublin University Cricket Club play their home matches, during the time when Ireland was part of the United Kingdom; the club held a great influence over Irish cricket, and the ground was considered the centre of cricket in Ireland. The cricket club once had first-class status, it was in 1895 that the ground held its first first-class match between Dublin University and the Marylebone Cricket Club. Ireland first used the ground for a first-class fixture in 1907 against the touring South Africans. With the Partition of Ireland in 1922, cricket lost much of its standing in the newly created Republic of Ireland, Dublin University suffered too with the subsequent decline of the sport in the Republic. Nevertheless, the ground continued to host touring sides and English county sides, with 1926 seeing Dublin University play its third and final first-class fixture against Northamptonshire.