The club takes its name from St. Stephens De La Salle National School in Patrick Street and previous to the current club being established, fielded a hurling team under the name of St. Stephens. St. Stephens won 2 Senior County Hurling Championships, 1913 and 1914.
In recent years the club has concentrated on developing juvenile players and now has one of the biggest under age setups in the South East of Ireland. The club has produced many Senior Inter County hurlers in the last few years such as John Mullane, Johnny and Stephen Brenner, Kevin Moran, Bryan Phelan and Derek McGrath. The club has also won numerous under age County titles in Hurling and Football as well as All Ireland Feile (Under 14 Championships) in both codes.
There were 5 De La Salle players on the Waterford U-21 team which won the counties only U-21 All-Ireland in 1992.
John Barron (1959) is the only De La Salle player to win a Senior All-Ireland hurling medal.
The late Sonny Walsh also won a National League medal with Waterford.
De La Salle is very much a family club with famous families like the Brenners, the Daltons and the Duggans part of its core for many years. The club is also very proud of its association with the De La Salle Brothers and wears the crest of St. John Baptist de la Salle on their jerseys.
2008 was an historic year for the club, moving to their new grounds in Gracedieu and winning their first Senior County Hurling title. The club also won the County Under 21 hurling championship and the Munster Senior Club Hurling Championship. In December De La Salle were honoured as club of the year in both Waterford and in Munster.
On 21 February 2009 the club made history by being the first club to reach the All-Ireland Senior Club Hurling Championship Final at their first attempt when they beat Ruari Og of Cushendall by 1-21 to 1-19 (after extra time) in the All Ireland semi final at Parnell Park in Dublin. In November 2010, they won their second Munster Senior Club Hurling Championship after a 0-9 to 0-8 win against Thurles Sarsfields GAA.[1]
