The anecdotal evidence is that the Company was set up in response to proposals from a local builder to build a factory on the site. To pre-empt this possibility a group of “gentlemen” got together to form Blackrock Bowling and Lawn Tennis Club.

They then approached the successors of the Rev. John Craig who in 1843 had taken out a lease on the land from the Pembroke Estate. The new Company took out a lease for a period of 33 years, on an area of one acre, two roods & four perches on land situated behind Victoria Place.

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Included in this lease was a clause that forbade the use of the premises “for the purpose of any trade, manufacture or business of any description, nor of any public body or society or religious or charitable institution nor as an asylum for lunatics or idiots hospital, nursing or nurses home or barrack school or as a burial ground”. This clause was to prove invaluable, when, at a later date, during a difficult financial period creditors came prowling around thinking that they could move in on a lucrative site. The restriction on any business caused them to shrink back from whence they came. With regard to the reference to the burial ground, there have been many occasions when a bowl or a tennis ball took a funny bump and members, and even more so visitors, swore that there must be a body buried under that spot.

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Blackrock Bowling & Lawn Tennis Club Ltd. was set up in 1906 as an old Public Limited Company with a maximum of 50 Shareholders. It was to remain like this for 90 years until the Shareholders agreed to hand over power in 1996 to Blackrock Bowling & Tennis Club Ltd. This was a new Company limited by Guarantee, not having a share capital, which had been set up to allow all the members a say in the running of the Company.