The Ireland cricket team is the cricket team representing all Ireland (i.e. both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland). Due to political difficulties, the Irish Cricket Union was not elected to the International Cricket Council until 1993, and qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 2007.

History: The English brought cricket to Ireland. the game was introduced to the Garrison towns of Kilkenny and Ballinasloe in the early 1800's. The spread began in the 1830's and many clubs, still in existence today, were founded in the next 30 years.

The first Irish National team took the field in 1855 long before any Test Match was ever played. The match was -v- The Gentlemen of England in Dublin.

Charles Lawrence, an Englishman, was in Dublin playing, coaching and developing the game in Ireland in the 1850's. He went to Australia with H.H. Stevenson's team in 1861 and stayed to coach the ever growing numbers playing there.

The touring professional teams all came to Ireland in the 1850's and 1860's. The first match -v- M.C.C. was in 1858.

The spread of cricket continued until the early 1880's. Two events then became retarding factors. The first was the outbreak of land wars when Landlord and Tenant were alienated. the second was a ban placed on the playing of "foreign" games by the Gaelic Athletic Association who are the guardians of the native Irish games of Hurling and Gaelic Football. Incredibly this ban was not lifted until 1970. If a player played the extremely popular Irish games he could not play the "foreign" games. If he did he would be banned from the Irish games. The archives record a tour of North America in 1888. Their first match with first-class status was played in 1902 against a London County side including W.G. Grace. The Irish won convincingly, by 238 runs.

Ireland's greatest cricketing success to date was in the 2007 Cricket World Cup, where they achieved a tie against Zimbabwe and victories over Pakistan and Bangladesh, and ended the tournament ranked 10th overall in the official ICC rankings above Zimbabwe and Kenya.