Ulster Minor Hurling Championship

Ulster Minor Hurling Championship
Founded1930
RegionUlster (GAA)
Current championsAntrim (58th time)
WebsiteOfficial website

The Ulster Hurling Minor Championship is an annual hurling competition organised by the Ulster Council of the Gaelic Athletic Association since 1930 for the youngest competitors (under-18) in the province of Ulster in Ireland. It is sponsored by the Electricity Supply Board and therefore officially known as the ESB Ulster GAA Hurling Minor Championship.[1] Dormant since 2017, the competition was reborn in 2023.

The series of games are played during the summer months with the Ulster final currently being played on the last Sunday of June. The minor final provides the curtain-raiser to the senior final. The prize for the winning team is the Minor Hurling Cup.

The Ulster Championship does not feed directly into the All-Ireland Minor Hurling Championship. Instead, the top teams in Ulster, at the conclusion of the Ulster Minor Hurling Championship, join the Leinster Minor Hurling Championship, along with Galway from Connacht.

Only a handful of teams currently participate in the Ulster Championship, due to dominance of Gaelic football in the province. Antrim are by far the dominant county, reflecting their unique position as a hurling county in Ulster. Their nearest rivals are Down GAA, a predominantly footballing county that nevertheless maintains a hurling stronghold on the Ards Peninsula, and Derry GAA which boasts a small but important number of 'dual' clubs that play both codes. Armagh briefly took part in the 2010s.

  1. ^ "ESB to power the All-Ireland Minor Championships". RTÉ Sport. 10 August 2005. Retrieved 17 February 2012.