The Dr Croke Cup is the trophy presented to the winner of the All Ireland Secondary Schools Senior "A" hurling championship. Before that it was an inter-county GAA competition in

hurling Hurling ( ga, iománaíocht, ') is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic Irish origin, played by men. 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 p ...

. The first Croke Cups (which included hurling and Gaelic football) took place between 1896 and 1915.

Clare Clare may refer to: Places Antarctica * Clare Range, a mountain range in Victoria Land Australia * Clare, South Australia, a town in the Clare Valley * Clare Valley, South Australia Canada * Clare (electoral district), an electoral district * Cl ...

was the first winner of the Dr Croke Cup for

in 1896. In 1909 Ulster were expelled from the Dr Croke Cup because of "bad gates" but the decision was later rescinded. Since 1944 however, it is the pinnacle of colleges hurling to win the "Dr Croke Cup", named after

Thomas Croke Thomas William Croke D.D. (28 May 1824 – 22 July 1902) was the second Catholic Bishop of Auckland, New Zealand (1870–74) and later Archbishop of Cashel and Emly in Ireland. He was important in the Irish nationalist movement especially as a C ...

Archbishop of Cashel The Archbishop of Cashel ( ga, Ard-Easpag Chaiseal Mumhan) was an archiepiscopal title which took its name after the town of Cashel, County Tipperary in Ireland. Following the Reformation, there had been parallel apostolic successions to the title ...

, in whose honour Croke Park is also named.

Current format

For official fixtures and results se
Croke Cup at gaa.ie
Six school teams currently compete in the Dr Croke Cup, namely the winners and beaten finalists in the Connacht A championship, the winners and beaten finalists in the Leinster A Championship and the winners and beaten finalists in the Dr Harty Cup (Munster A Championship). The winners of the Mageean Cup (Ulster A Championship) compete in the Paddy Buggy Cup (All-Ireland B Championship) as Ulster hurling is considered weak in comparison to the other three provinces. The three beaten finalists and one of the provincial champions contest the two quarter-finals with the winners meeting the remaining two provincial champions in the semi-finals. All matches are knock-out.

Wins listed by college

Finals listed by year

Football finals 1896 to 1914

*Cup presented to All-Ireland winners

External links

55 Years of the Croke Cup

Complete Roll of Honour on Kilkenny GAA bible

References

{{reflist All-Ireland Hurling Championships All-Ireland inter-county hurling championships Hurling cup competitions