The Wexford County Board of the
Gaelic Athletic Association
The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA; ga, Cumann Lúthchleas Gael ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sports, amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include t ...
(GAA) ( ga, Cumann Luthchleas Gael Coiste Chontae Loch Garman) or Wexford GAA is one of the 32
county board
A county board is a common form of county legislature, particular of counties in the United States.
Related forms of county government include:
* Board of Supervisors — a form of county legislature in some U.S. states
* County commission, ...
s of the GAA in Ireland, and is responsible for
Gaelic games in
County Wexford
County Wexford ( ga, Contae Loch Garman) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Leinster and is part of the Southern Region. Named after the town of Wexford, it was based on the historic Gaelic territory of Hy Kinsella (''Uí Ceinns ...
. The county board is also responsible for the Wexford county teams.
Wexford is one of the few counties to have won the All-Ireland Senior Championship in both football and hurling.
The
county hurling team last won the
All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship in 1996.
The
county football team has won five
All-Ireland Senior Football Championship
The All-Ireland Senior Football Championship (SFC) ( ga, Craobh Shinsir Peile na hÉireann) is the premier competition in Gaelic football. An annual tournament organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), it is contested by the county ...
s, with the most recent win achieved in 1918.
History
Hurling has been played in Wexford from medieval times. Evidence of this can be found in the hurling ballads of the 15th and 16th centuries. The nickname "Yellowbellies" is said to have been given to the county's hurlers by
Sir Caesar Colclough of
Tintern
Tintern ( cy, Tyndyrn) is a village in the community of Wye Valley, on the west bank of the River Wye in Monmouthshire, Wales, close to the border with England, about north of Chepstow. It is popular with tourists, in particular for the scenery ...
in south Wexford, following a 17th-century game between a team of hurlers under his patronage and a team of
hurlers from
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
, near
Glynn
Glynn () is a small village and civil parish in the Mid and East Antrim Borough Council area of County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It lies a short distance south of Larne, on the shore of Larne Lough. Glynn had a population of 2,027 people in th ...
in County Wexford. Others have said that
King George III
George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...
shouted "come on the yellow bellies" at an exhibition match near London, in which the Wexford hurlers were wearing yellow ribbons. Apparently, the real reason they are called the 'yellow-bellies' is because one D Coffey declared it back in 1982.
Football
Clubs
Clubs contest the
Wexford Senior Football Championship
The Wexford Senior Football Championship is an annual Gaelic football competition contested by top-tier Wexford GAA clubs. The Wexford County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association has organised it since 1886.
The 2022 champions are Castlet ...
. As of 2020, three clubs have eleven titles each.
No club has won a national or provincial title.
County team
Wexford had one of the greatest football teams in the history of the GAA in the 1910s, winning six consecutive
Leinster Senior Football Championship
The Leinster Senior Football Championship, known simply as the Leinster Championship and shortened to Leinster SFC, is an annual inter-county Gaelic football competition organised by the Leinster Council of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GA ...
(SFC) titles; it was also the first team to win four consecutive
All-Ireland Senior Football Championship
The All-Ireland Senior Football Championship (SFC) ( ga, Craobh Shinsir Peile na hÉireann) is the premier competition in Gaelic football. An annual tournament organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), it is contested by the county ...
(SFC) titles. 1900 star James 'the Bull' Roche, who had fought for the
World heavyweight boxing championship
At boxing's beginning, the heavyweight division had no weight limit, and historically the weight class has gone with vague or no definition. During the 19th century many heavyweights were 170 pounds (12 st 2 lb, 77 kg) or less, thou ...
, trained that team, which featured Fr Ned Wheeler, Aidan Doyle and the O'Kennedy brothers, Gus and
Seán, as players. The latter was the team
captain
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
. The feat of six consecutive Leinster SFC titles was only equalled in 1931, when
Kildare
Kildare () is a town in County Kildare, Ireland. , its population was 8,634 making it the 7th largest town in County Kildare. The town lies on the R445, some west of Dublin – near enough for it to have become, despite being a regional ce ...
won the sixth in a sequence that had begun in 1926.
Wexford's last major football success was winning the Leinster SFC title in 1945. From then on, the game of
hurling took precedence in Wexford and as a consequence the fate of the Wexford footballers was to descend into obscurity for many decades.
Hurling
![GAA plaque, Wexford](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/GAA_plaque%2C_Wexford.jpg)
Clubs
Clubs contest the
Wexford Senior Hurling Championship
The Wexford Senior Hurling Championship (known for sponsorship reasons as the Pettitt's SuperValu Senior Hurling Championship) is an annual hurling competition contested by top-tier Wexford GAA clubs. The Wexford County Board of the Gaelic Athl ...
. The
Rathnure
Rathnure () is a small village on the R731 regional road about from the town of Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland. The village is located at the foot of the Blackstairs Mountain, which borders County Carlow on the opposite side.
Place ...
club has the most titles.
Buffers Alley
Buffers Alley is a Gaelic Athletic Association club based in the villages of Kilmuckridge and Monamolin in County Wexford, Ireland. The club fields teams in Intermediate hurling, Gaelic football and camogie. It competes in Wexford compet ...
won the
1988–89 All-Ireland Senior Club Hurling Championship.
County team
Hurling is one of the most prominent sports in Wexford. This is in evidence in several one-sided results over the years: Kildare were beaten by 14–15 to 1–1 in an 1897 Croke Cup match. The
Antrim team were beaten by 12–17 to 2–3 in a 1954 All-Ireland semi-final.
Nicky Rackard
Nicholas Rackard (28 April 1922 – 10 April 1976) was an Irish hurler whose league and championship career with the Wexford senior team spanned seventeen years from 1940 to 1957. He established many championship scoring records, including bein ...
, who scored 7–7 at that day, was Wexford's greatest hurler. He starred in two clashes with
Cork
Cork or CORK may refer to:
Materials
* Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product
** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container
***Wine cork
Places Ireland
* Cork (city)
** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...
in 1954 and 1956. Wexford lost the first after having a goal disallowed, but won the second with the combination of an
Art Foley
Michael Arthur Foley (14 December 1928 – 28 October 2019) was an Irish hurler who played as a goalkeeper for the Wexford senior team.
Born in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Foley first arrived on the inter-county scene at the age of seventeen ...
save and Nicky Rackard goal in
the closing minutes.
In the 1970s, the distinctive red-haired
Tony Doran
Anthony "Tony" Doran (born April 1946) is an Irish retired hurler who played as a full-forward for the Wexford senior team.
Born in Boolavogue, County Wexford, Doran first arrived on the inter-county scene at the age of seventeen when he firs ...
was the star as
Kilkenny
Kilkenny (). is a city in County Kilkenny, Ireland. It is located in the South-East Region and in the province of Leinster. It is built on both banks of the River Nore. The 2016 census gave the total population of Kilkenny as 26,512.
Kilken ...
and Wexford played ten Leinster finals in succession. In 1984 they claimed that the final whistle was blown prematurely when they were beaten by a single point in the Leinster final.
In 1996 Wexford, led by Liam Griffin and captained by
Martin Storey
Martin Storey (born 28 September 1964) is an Irish former hurler who played as a centre-forward at senior level for the Wexford county team.
Regarded as one of the greatest Wexford players of all-time, Storey made his first appearance for th ...
, brought the
Liam MacCarthy Cup
The Liam MacCarthy Cup is a trophy awarded annually by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) to the team that wins the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, the main competition in the prehistoric sport of hurling. Based on the design of a me ...
back to Slaneyside for the first time since 1968; they were waiting 28 years.
Cork
Cork or CORK may refer to:
Materials
* Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product
** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container
***Wine cork
Places Ireland
* Cork (city)
** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...
, Kilkenny and
Tipperary
Tipperary is the name of:
Places
*County Tipperary, a county in Ireland
**North Tipperary, a former administrative county based in Nenagh
**South Tipperary, a former administrative county based in Clonmel
*Tipperary (town), County Tipperary's na ...
have dominated the honours in recent years.
Davy Fitzgerald took over as manager of the team for 2017, and made progress by reaching the Leinster Final for the first time in nine years. In the final they played Galway. Fitzgerald was appointed after the departure of Liam Dunne, who also played a huge part in their recent success.
Wexford's most recent hurling success was in the Leinster Final of
2019 when they defeated Kilkenny. In the Leinster semi-final, a draw in Wexford Park between Wexford and Kilkenny made it a rematch for the final. However, hurling in Wexford has been on the slide since 1996, their last All-Ireland success, and the Leinster title in 2004 simply papered over the cracks.
Camogie
After winning promotion from intermediate in the late 1950s, Wexford won their first
All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship
The All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship is a competition for inter-county teams in the women's field sport of game of camogie played in Ireland. The series of games are organised by the Camogie Association and are played during the summer m ...
in 1968, and won further All Ireland titles in
1969,
1975,
2007,
2010,
2011
File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...
and 2012. They contested the first
National Camogie League
The National Camogie League, known for sponsorship reasons as the Very Ireland Camogie Leagues, is a competition in the Irish team sport of camogie, played exclusively by women. The competition is held in three divisions graded by ability.
It w ...
final in 1977, won the second competition and returned to win it three times in a row between 2009 and 2011.
Buffers Alley
Buffers Alley is a Gaelic Athletic Association club based in the villages of Kilmuckridge and Monamolin in County Wexford, Ireland. The club fields teams in Intermediate hurling, Gaelic football and camogie. It competes in Wexford compet ...
(5) and
Rathnure
Rathnure () is a small village on the R731 regional road about from the town of Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland. The village is located at the foot of the Blackstairs Mountain, which borders County Carlow on the opposite side.
Place ...
(1995) have won the
All Ireland Senior Club Championship.
Notable players include
team of the century
In team sport, team of the century and team of the decade are hypothetical best teams over a given time period. For the century team, it can be either 100 years, or for a century (always the 20th). Similarly the team of the decade can be for 10 ...
members
Mary Sinnott
Mary Sinnott born 1943 in Aughfad, County Wexford, Ireland as Mary Dinan, is a former camogie and badminton player.
Biography
Mary Dinan was born Mary Sinnott in Aughfad, County Wexford in 1943. She is the daughter of John and Mai Sinnott (nee ...
and
Margaret O'Leary
Margaret O'Leary-Leacy born in Wexford is a former camogie player selected on the camogie team of the century in 2004, and winner of All Ireland medals in 1968, 1969 and 1975.
Playing career
She played for Buffers Alley Club with whom she wo ...
,
player of the year
Several sports leagues honour their best player with an award called Player of the Year (POY) . In the United States, this type of award is usually called a Most Valuable Player award.
Association football
In association football, this award is he ...
award-winners
Bridget Doyle and
Kate Kelly,
All Star award winners Áine Codd
Áine Codd is a camogie player, winner of an All-Star award in 2004 and an All Ireland medal in 2007.
Career
She played camogie for Presentation Wexford and was UCD camogie player of the year for 2001. She was nominated for further All Star a ...
,
Mags Darcy,
Mary Leacy
Mary Leacy (born March 2, 1986 in Oulart, County Wexford) is an Irish sportsperson. She won camogie All Star awards in 2004, 2007 and 2010. She plays camogie with her local club Oulart–The Ballagh and has been a member of the Wexford s ...
,
Ursula Jacob
Ursula Jacob is a camogie player, winner of Camogie All Stars Awards, All Star awards in Camogie All Stars Awards#2010, 2010, Camogie All Stars Awards#2011, 2011, Camogie All Stars Awards#2012, 2012 and Camogie All Stars Awards#2014, 2014. All-Ir ...
.
Una Leacy
Una Leacy is a camogie player and winner of two All-Star awards. Leacy's first All-Star came in 2007, the year her two early goals helped Wexford win their first All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship in 32 years, and her second in 2011. She ...
,
Claire O'Connor,
Catherine O'Loughlin,
Katrina Parrock
Katrina Parrock (born 2 September 1990) is an Irish camogie player, winner of All-Ireland Senior medals in 2007, 2010, 2011 and 2012 and an All Star award winner in 2010, 2011 and 2012. She was an All Star nominee in 2006, 2007 and 20 ...
and All Ireland final stars
Mary Walsh and
Gretta Quigley Gretta may refer to:
People
* Gretta Bowen (1880–1981), self-taught Irish artist
* Gretta Chambers (1927–2017), Canadian journalist and former Chancellor of McGill University
* Gretta Cohn, American cellist and radio producer
* Gretta Duisenbe ...
.
Under Camogie's National Development Plan 2010–2015, "Our Game, Our Passion", five new camogie clubs were to be established in the county by 2015.
Wexford have the following achievements in camogie.
*
All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship
The All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship is a competition for inter-county teams in the women's field sport of game of camogie played in Ireland. The series of games are organised by the Camogie Association and are played during the summer m ...
s: ''7''
**(click on year for team line-outs)
1968,
[ 1969,][ 1975,][ 2007,][ 2010,]["All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship: Roll of Honour"]
RTÉ, 9 May 2008. 2011
File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...
, 2012
*All-Ireland Intermediate Camogie Championship
The All-Ireland Intermediate Camogie Championship is a competition in the women's field sport of camogie for second-tier county teams and for second-string teams of first-tier counties. If the winning team comes from a second-tier county, that c ...
s: 1
**2011[2011 final Wexford 2–12 Antrim 0–15 Report i]
Irish Times
/ref>
*All-Ireland Junior Camogie Championship
The All-Ireland Junior Camogie Championship is a competition for third-tier county teams in the women's field sport of camogie and for second-string teams of first-tier counties. In accordance with the practice in GAA competitions the term juni ...
s: 1
**2021
*All-Ireland Minor Camogie Championship
The All-Ireland Minor Camogie Championship is a competition for under-18 teams in the women's field sport of camogie. Counties compete for the Síghle Nic an Ultaigh Cup. There are graded competitions at Minor B and Minor C level.
History
The ...
s: 1
**1995
*National Camogie League
The National Camogie League, known for sponsorship reasons as the Very Ireland Camogie Leagues, is a competition in the Irish team sport of camogie, played exclusively by women. The competition is held in three divisions graded by ability.
It w ...
s: 4
**(click on year for team line-outs) 1977, 2009, 2010 and 2011
File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...
Ladies' football
Wexford have the following achievements in ladies' football.
*All-Ireland Senior Ladies' Football Championship
The All-Ireland Senior Ladies' Football Championship is the premier inter-county competition in the game of ladies' Gaelic football in Ireland. The series of games are organised by the Ladies' Gaelic Football Association and are played during the ...
Finalists: 3
**1983, 1986, 1989
*All-Ireland Junior Ladies' Football Championship
The All-Ireland Junior Ladies' Football Championship is a "knockout" competition in the game of Ladies' Gaelic football played by women in Ireland. The series of games are organised by Ladies' Gaelic Football Association (Irish :''Cumann Peil G ...
Finalists: 2
* 1986, 1987
*All-Ireland Junior Ladies' Football Championship
The All-Ireland Junior Ladies' Football Championship is a "knockout" competition in the game of Ladies' Gaelic football played by women in Ireland. The series of games are organised by Ladies' Gaelic Football Association (Irish :''Cumann Peil G ...
Winners: 1
*2014
*All-Ireland Intermediate Ladies' Football Championship
The All-Ireland Intermediate Ladies' Football Championship is a knock-out competition in the game of Ladies' Gaelic football played by women in Ireland. The series of games are organised by Ladies' Gaelic Football Association (Irish :''Cumann ...
Finalists: 1
**2007
*All-Ireland Under-18 Ladies' Football Championship
The All-Ireland Under-18 Ladies' Football Championship is a "knockout" competition in the game of Ladies' Gaelic football played by women in Ireland. The series of games are organised by the Ladies' Gaelic Football Association
The Ladies' Gael ...
s: ''4''
**1982, 1983, 1984, 1986
*All-Ireland Under-16 Ladies' Football Championship
The All-Ireland Under-16 Ladies' Football Championship is a "knockout" competition in the game of Ladies' Gaelic football played by women in Ireland. The series of games are organised by the Ladies' Gaelic Football Association
The Ladies' Gael ...
: ''3''
**1981, 1982, 1983
*All-Ireland Under-14 Ladies' Football Championship
The All-Ireland Under-14 Ladies' Football Championship is a "knockout" competition in the game of Ladies' Gaelic football played by women in Ireland. The series of games are organised by the Ladies' Gaelic Football Association
The Ladies' Gael ...
: ''1''
**1990
References
External links
Wexford GAA site
Wexford on Hoganstand.com
National and provincial titles won by Wexford teams
Club championship winners
Wexford GAA Discussion Board
{{GAA bodies
Gaelic games governing bodies in Leinster
Leinster GAA
Sport in County Wexford