In the first County Championship game in January 1887, Ballyconnell First Ulsters met the Bailieborough Home Rulers.

The Home Rulers left Bailieborough at four in the morning and brought the goal posts on a horse and spring cart.

A Royal Irish Constabulary force warned them they were breaking the Sunday Observance Act; they played on regardless.

[6] By 1911 they were known as the Shamrocks, with the Home Rule movement being replaced by Irish republicanism and a desire for full independence.

The hurling history of the team goes back to 1923; they have won five county senior titles.