The site they selected had been occupied by an old brewery, which was converted into a workhouse by the local board of guardians during the Great Famine.

The new building was designed by William Hague in the Victorian style, built by Connolly & Son in brick with a cement render finish at a cost of £3,800 and was officially opened by the chairman of the town commissioners, John Hammond, on 30 March 1886.

[4] The organist at Carlow Cathedral, Jan Baptist van Craen, gave a public concert in the town hall on 13 February 1893.

The former Rector of Carlow College, Father Patrick Doyle, gave a lecture of John Mitchel's Jail Journal in 1913,[6] and the Minister for Agriculture, Art O'Connor, convened a conference in the town hall, intending to resolve issues between the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union and the Irish Farmers' Union, on 10 August 1920.

[8] The Carlow County Museum which had been based in the town hall since 1979,[9] moved to the former Presentation Convent in College Street in April 2012.