Gordon William D'Arcy (born 10 February 1980, in Ferns, County Wexford[2]) is a retired Irish rugby player who played most of his career at inside centre.

D'Arcy was a promising fullback for schools side Clongowes Wood in the late 1990s, and on the eve of his Leaving Cert was called into the Irish squad for the tour of South Africa by coach Warren Gatland.

[6] On leaving school he joined the Lansdowne Football Club and made his Ireland debut on 15 October 1999 as a substitute against Romania during the World Cup.

Following a falling out with his provincial coaches regarding his attitude – which almost drove him to retire from the game – D'Arcy was left out of the international setup for three years.

After the World Cup, an injury to Brian O'Driscoll, his Leinster teammate, saw D'Arcy move to outside centre, where he made a great impression.

Owing to the further absence of O'Driscoll from the Irish squad for the first match of the Six Nations in that season against France, D'Arcy found himself in the number 13 jersey at international level.

What most impressed supporters was his ability to wrong-foot the flat-defence off passes from O'Driscoll and to create space out of nothing; this was particularly appreciated in his performance against England at Twickenham.

After sustaining a multiple fracture in his arm in the opening match of the 2008 Six Nations, versus Italy, D'Arcy missed the remainder of the season and only returned to Leinster in December 2008.

[20] In February 2015 it was announced that Gordon D'Arcy and his wife Aoife Cogan were expecting their first child and a baby girl, named Soleil, was born in May 2015.