On 2 August 1880, a Colonel de Burgh called for a meeting of members of the Naas and Country Kildare Cricket club to discuss forming a country club for the purpose of providing archery, cricket, football, lawn tennis, polo, and pigeon shooting for local town residents.

[5] In August 1881 the County Kildare Open Tennis Championships came into existence.

[6] In 1939 the event was won by Irish Davies Cup player George McVeagh.

[8] Notes: Challenge round: The final round of a tournament, in which the winner of a single-elimination phase faces the previous year's champion, who plays only that one match.

The challenge round was used in the early history of tennis (from 1877 through 1921) [9] in some tournaments not all.