Ulster GAA oversees a range of administrative tasks including the organisation of provincial level competitions such as the annual Ulster Senior Football Championship as well as the Ulster teams which compete in provincial competitions. Headquartered in Armagh City, the current President is Armagh’s Michael Geoghan[1] and the Secretary is Down’s Brian McAvoy.[2]
The Gaelic Athletic Association was founded in Hayes Hotel in Thurles County Tipperary on 1 November 1884 by Michael Cussack. With the support of patrons such as Land League leaders Charles Stewart Parnell and Michael Davitt, as well as Archbishop Thomas Croke, the association quickly grew, with clubs being established in parishes across Ireland. The first Ulster club to affiliate to the national organisation was Ballyconnell in County Cavan in 1885 and over the next few years clubs and county boards were formed in Cavan, Monaghan, Armagh, Fermanagh and Derry.[3]
The first Ulster Football Championship was held in 1888, which consisted of two games between Red Hand of Monaghan and Moch Finn’s of Cavan. The first game resulted in a draw on 19 August and Red Hand won the subsequent replay on 9 September. No championship was held the following year, but in 1890 Armagh defeated Antrim and then Tyrone to lift their first title. Neither Cavan nor Monaghan entered the competition. In 1891, Cavan regained their title, defeating Armagh after a replay, but this was the last Ulster Championship to be held until 1901.
The early association was beset with problems, owing to a litany of issues including rapid growth, the disapproval of Sunday games in Protestant areas and the distance between Ulster and the GAA’s headquarters in Munster. The association effectively failed to operate with only a handful of clubs operating in the middle of the 1890s.[4]
By 1901, the association saw a revival, coupled with the growth of Conradh na Gaeilge in areas like Belfast. The first Ulster Council was established at a meeting in Armagh in 1903 with Belfast solicitor George Martin elected as the first President and MV O’Nolan (father of writer Flann O’Brien) as Vice-President and 20-year-old Derry draper Louis O’Kane as secretary.[5]
Ulster has always been the weakest of the provinces in hurling terms, possibly due to the difference between the hurling promulgated by the early Gaelic Athletic Association and the "commons" game played in Ulster. The Ulster hurling team have only won four Railway Cup semi-final games in their history (1945, 1992, 1993 and 1995),[8] it, however, lost in each of those Railway Cup deciders.[8]
There have been some successes over the years, mostly by Antrim teams:
In 2020, a concept was discussed among players and managers, with a proposal that a combined "Team Ulster" would compete in the Liam MacCarthy Cup.[9][10][11][12]
The Ulster camogie team has twice won the premier representative competition in the women's team field sport of camogie, the Gael Linn Cup, in 1967 and 2007.
↑ The Story of Gaelic Games in Ulster. Cardinal Ó Fiach Library. 2010. p.4. Over the next couple of years over one hundred clubs were formed in the southern half of Ulster, and county boards were established in An Cabhán, Muineachán, Ard Mhacha, Fear Manach and Doire.
↑ McAnallen, Donal (2010). The History of Gaelic Games in Ulster. Carinal Ó Fiach Library. p.4. By 1891, the GAA in Ulster (and in other parts of the country) was on a downward spiral. It had grown perhaps too rapidly in these early years, and it was unfit to withstand the many problems that confronted it at once. The parochial rivalries that had helped it to spread also led to bad feeling, and frequently disputes on the playing f ields were carried on through letters in the newspapers. Several prominent Catholic clerics condemned the association from the pulpit, on account of the fights and drunkenness at many early Gaelic games on Sundays (which apparently scandalised sabbatarian Protestant neighbours), and the efforts of the Irish Republican Brotherhood to infiltrate it.
↑ McAnallen, Donal (2010). The Story of Gaelic Games in Ulster. Cardinal Ó Fiach Library. p.6. In March 1903 Comhairle Uladh (the Ulster Council) was established by a meeting in Armagh City. George Martin, a solicitor from Belfast, was elected as the first Uachtarán; Michael Victor O Nolan, a customs and excise official living in Strabane and father of the famous writer Brian O Nolan ('Flann O'Brien'), was appointed Leas-Uachtarán; and Louis O Kane, a 20-year old draper's assistant from Derry City, was given the role of secretary.
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