Hurling is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic Irish origin, played by men and women. One of Ireland's native Gaelic games, it shares a number of features with Gaelic football, such as the field and goals, the number of players and much terminology. The same game played by women is called camogie, which shares a common Gaelic root.
Shinty is a team sport played with sticks and a ball. Shinty is now played mainly in the Scottish Highlands and among Highland migrants to the major cities of Scotland, but it was formerly more widespread in Scotland, and was even played in Northern England into the second half of the 20th century and other areas in the world where Scottish Highlanders migrated.
Camogie is an Irish stick-and-ball team sport played by women. Camogie is played by 100,000 women in Ireland and worldwide, largely among Irish communities.
The Donegal County Board or Donegal GAA is one of 32 county boards of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in Ireland, and is responsible for the administration of Gaelic games in County Donegal.
Sport plays a central role in Scottish culture. The temperate, oceanic climate has played a key part in the evolution of sport in Scotland, with all-weather sports like association football and golf dominating the national sporting consciousness. However, many other sports are played in the country, with popularity varying between sports and between regions.
In the sport of shinty, there are several clubs which play under the banner of one of the Scottish universities. However, these clubs are not always student teams in the strictest sense of the word, and have a long history of participation at national senior level. Since the introduction of a summer season, only the Aberdeen University Shinty Club continues to play in the senior leagues, although Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews have all done so in the past.
Edinburgh University Shinty Club is one of the oldest shinty clubs in existence having been founded in 1891. The club, which represents the University of Edinburgh has both male and female team sides, with players coming from other further and higher education establishments in the city, including Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh Napier and Edinburgh College. Whilst formally a University Shinty team, the club has a long history of playing at national level.
The Scotland Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) or Scotland GAA is one of the county boards of the GAA outside Ireland, and is responsible for Gaelic games in Scotland. The county board is also responsible for the Scottish county teams. The Board participates with London, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire, Lancashire, Warwickshire, and Yorkshire under the British GAA.
A county is a geographic region within Gaelic games, controlled by a county board of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and originally based on the 32 counties of Ireland as they were in 1884. While the administrative geography of Ireland has since changed, with several new counties created and the six that make up Northern Ireland superseded by 11 local government districts, the counties in Gaelic games have remained largely unchanged.
Hurling has a long, but often unclear history, stretching back over three millennia. References to stick-and-ball games are found in Irish mythology. The game is thought to be related to the games of shinty that is played primarily in Scotland, cammag on the Isle of Man and bandy that was played formerly in England and Wales. There is evidence that in ancient times a similar game called Knattleikr was also played in Iceland, with the Icelandic sagas, "suggesting that it was something that was brought from the Gælic area to Iceland".
Although many hurling clubs exist worldwide, only Ireland has a national team. Ireland's national hurling team and the Scotland shinty team have played for many years with modified match rules in international composite rules—much like international rules football brings together Gaelic football and Australian rules football. This match is the only such international competition.
The British University Gaelic football Championship is an annual Gaelic football tournament held for universities in Great Britain. It is organised by the BUGAA which is a branch of the Higher Education GAA committee which oversees Gaelic Games in Universities. The competition is also overseen by British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS). In GAA in Ireland trophies have tended to be named after Irish patriots or long-serving officials or heroic players, whereas the Irish diaspora at British Universities have perpetuated the names of young students who died soon after helping to establish Gaelic Games in British Universities. The Gaelic Football Championship Trophy, The Kevin Fallon Trophy, commemorates a Crewe & Alsager student who helped to organise the original competition in 1991. See also the British University Hurling Championship.
Composite rules shinty–hurling – sometimes known simply as shinty–hurling – is a hybrid sport of shinty and hurling which was developed to facilitate international matches between the two sports.
The 1923 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship was the 37th staging of the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, the Gaelic Athletic Association's premier inter-county hurling tournament. The championship began on 20 May 1923 and ended on 14 September 1924.
Brendan Maher is an Irish hurler who plays for club side Borris–Ileigh and previously at inter-county level with the Tipperary senior hurling team. Regarded as one of the great talents of his generation, Maher enjoyed a 13-season career with the Tipperary senior hurling team, won three All-Stars and was a Hurler of the Year nominee in 2010. He won eight major trophies in his inter-county career, comprising three All-Ireland Championships, captaining the team in 2016, and five Munster Championships. A versatile player who switched between attacking and defensive positions, Maher made a combined 124 league and championship appearances.
The Ireland national hurling team is a representative team for the island of Ireland in the hybrid sport of composite rules shinty–hurling.
The 2014 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship was the 127th staging of the All-Ireland championship since its establishment by the Gaelic Athletic Association in 1887. The draw for the 2014 fixtures took place on 3 October 2013. The championship began on 27 April 2014 and ended on 7 September 2014.
The Fergal Maher Cup is a hurling cup competition for Third-level Colleges. The Cup is awarded to the winners of the Tier 3 Championship.
William Maher is an Irish hurling coach selector and former player. At club level, he played with Ballingarry and at inter-county level played for Tipperary at all levels. Maher has also been involved as a coach and team manager at club and county levels in Tipperary, Waterford, Dublin, Laois and Kilkenny. He was appointed as the GAA's National Head of Hurling in January 2025.
2012/13 Michael O'Leary Cup