Clubs The county's most successful football club is
Kilcoo. Kilcoo has won the
Down Senior Football Championship on eighteen occasions, and also won the
Ulster Senior Club Football Championship in 2019 and 2021, as well as the
2021–22 All-Ireland Senior Club Football Championship.
County team Down has won the
All-Ireland Senior Football Championship (SFC) on five occasions, most recently in
1994. Down was not regarded as a football stronghold when Queen's University won the 1958
Sigerson Cup, and some of its leading players turned their thoughts to Down's county team dilemma. Down won the 1959
Ulster Senior Football Championship (SFC) title with six inter-changeable forwards who introduced off-the-ball running and oddities such as track-suits. In 1960, two goals in a three-minute period from
James McCartan and
Paddy Doherty helped Down to defeat
Kerry, who were almost completely unbeaten at the time, and which brought to an end the Kerry football regime for a few years. In 1961, Down defeated
Offaly by one point in a game that featured five first half goals. In that three-year period their supporters surpassed every attendance record in the book. When Down played Offaly in 1961 they set a record attendance of 90,556 for a GAA game. Against
Dublin in the 1964 National League final a record crowd of 70,125 attended. The 71,573 who watched Down play Kerry in 1961 still stands as a record for an All-Ireland SFC semi-final. In 1968, Down defeated Kerry with
Sean O'Neill and John Murphy goals, again in a two-minute spell. Despite a famous prediction that Down would go on to win three-in-a-row, the county took twenty years to regain its status. In 1991, Down surprised heavy favourites
Meath, a team that had established a trademark of durability, heavy second half scoring and late charges to save and win games, with the ability to outlast the stamina of their opponents. Following a series of pulsating comebacks, notably against Dublin in a series of replayed encounters, they had been christened "the team that couldn't be beaten". To counter this strength, rather than attempt to conserve energy as previous teams had attempted unsuccessfully against Meath, Down unexpectedly chose to tear into the game and the opposition with speed and ferocity from the opening whistle, with Barry Breen scoring the goal that sent his team into a huge lead of eleven points with twenty minutes to go; despite a trademark late charge, it proved a gap that even Meath could not quite overcome as Down won 1-16 to 1-14 and brought the Sam Maguire Cup back to Ulster, and the North, for the first time in 23 years - it wouldn't leave again for half a decade. In his victory speech as the winning coach, Peter McGrath christened his Down charges "the team that beat the team that couldn't be beaten". In 1994,
Mickey Linden sent
James McCartan in for a goal directly under
Hill 16, a goal which silenced Dublin and helped Down claim its fifth All-Ireland SFC title in its fifth final, the fourth consecutive win for an Ulster team. The 1994 win proved, however, to be the last major title for the football side until 2024, when Down beat Laois to claim the Tier 2
2024 Tailteann Cup, and with it, entry into the 2025 All-Ireland Senior Championship round robin. ==Hurling==