The idea of running a Dublin Quiz League came about on a car journey from Tullamore to Dublin, while driving back from the 2015 World Championship heat in June 2015. Quiz leagues had long been a feature in the UK (most notably the Quiz League of London, in operation since 1990). Surely there’d be an appetite for something similar in Dublin?
After a flurry of emails among the IQO committee members about how we’d go about doing such a thing, a plan was hatched and the call went out to find interested teams.
We found 10 of them, enough to form a workable league, so on 14th September 2015, all 10 teams crammed into JW Sweetman’s pub on Burgh Quay in Dublin city centre to kick off the Dublin Quiz League for the very first time.
The first Quiz League season was short by current standards – lasting exactly three months – and was essentially run as an experiment. The rules and quiz format were partly Quiz League of London-style individual rounds, and partly “chocolate box”-style team rounds, where teams choose a question topic from a list of 8 on a printed sheet.
Teams seemed receptive to the format, and hence the League is still running the same way today, despite more than doubling in size since 2015!
The first DQL champions were Obi Won This Round, who overcame a strong challenge from The Rollin’ Estonians to win the title on “goal difference” – the first and to date only time the title has been decided this way.
Winning teams
- 1st place: Obi Won This Round (€300 prize)
- 2nd place: The Rollin’ Estonians (€200)
- 3rd place: Team Irish Life (€100)
Winners’ gallery
2015 champions Obi Won This Round 
2015 runners-up The Rollin’ Estonians 
2015 third place Team Irish Life
Final league tables
| Division 1 | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | For | Against | Difference | Bonus | Points | |
| Division 1 | P | W | D | L | F | A | Diff | B | Pts | |
| 1 | Obi Won This Round | 9 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 473 | 371 | +102 | 2 | 34 |
| 2 | The Rollin' Estonians | 9 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 441 | 355 | +86 | 2 | 34 |
| 3 | Team Irish Life | 9 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 455 | 376 | +79 | 4 | 32 |
| 4 | Team Jules | 9 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 443 | 374 | +69 | 4 | 28 |
| 5 | CW4EVA | 9 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 422 | 395 | +27 | 2 | 22 |
| 6 | The Magnificent Seven | 9 | 4 | 0 | 5 | 378 | 397 | -19 | 1 | 17 |
| 7 | The Spanish Inquizition | 9 | 2 | 0 | 7 | 366 | 440 | -74 | 3 | 11 |
| 8 | E = MC Hammer | 9 | 2 | 0 | 7 | 351 | 407 | -56 | 2 | 10 |
| 9 | Rain Men | 9 | 2 | 0 | 7 | 334 | 428 | -94 | 2 | 10 |
| 10 | Priests of Quiztzalcoatl | 9 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 324 | 444 | -120 | 2 | 6 |
- Points are awarded as follows: 4 points awarded for a win, 2 for a draw, 0 for a loss.
- Bonus points are awarded as follows:
- Losing bonus: 1 league point awarded to any team who loses a close match (by 7 points or less)
- Individual bonus: 1 league point awarded to any team who has a “perfect” individual round during a match (4 out of 4 correct with no conferring)
- If two or more teams are level on points, then the team with the most points “For” are ranked ahead. If that’s also equal, then we use the Points Difference (points For minus points Against).
- Teams in the prize money and/or promotion slots are shown in green. Teams in the relegation zone are shown in red.