The Wexford County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) (Irish: Cumann Luthchleas Gael Coiste Chontae Loch Garman) or Wexford GAA is one of the 32 county boards of the GAA in Ireland, and is responsible for Gaelic games in County Wexford. 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.
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.[1] The nickname "Yellowbellies" is said to have been given to the county's hurlers by Sir Caesar Colclough of Tintern in south Wexford, following a 17th-century game between a team of hurlers under his patronage and a team of hurlers from Cornwall, near Glynn in County Wexford.[2] Others have said that King George III 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.[3]
No club has won a national or provincial title at senior level, but Rathgarogue-Cushinstown became the first Wexford football club side to reach an All Ireland Football Final in 2020 as they reached the junior All Ireland Football Final.
Team of Wexford, All-Ireland Senior Champions 1916
Wexford had one of the greatest football teams in the history of the GAA in the 1910s, winning six consecutive Leinster Senior Football Championship (SFC) titles; it was also the first team to win four consecutive All-Ireland Senior Football Championship (SFC) titles.[4] 1900 star James 'the Bull' Roche, who had fought for the World heavyweight boxing championship, 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. The feat of six consecutive Leinster SFC titles was only equalled in 1931, when Kildare won the sixth in a sequence that had begun in 1926.[5]
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.
Plaque on Rowe Street Lower, Wexford town, commemorating the founding of the county board in 1886.
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, who scored 7–7 at that day, was Wexford's greatest hurler.[citation needed] He starred in two clashes with Cork in 1954 and 1956. Wexford lost the first after having a goal disallowed, but won the second with the combination of an Art Foley save and Nicky Rackard goal in the closing minutes.
In the 1970s, the distinctive red-haired Tony Doran was the star as Kilkenny 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, brought the Liam MacCarthy Cup back to Slaneyside for the first time since 1968; they were waiting 28 years. Cork, Kilkenny and Tipperary 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[clarification needed] in their recent success.[6]
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.[7]
Under Camogie's National Development Plan 2010–2015, "Our Game, Our Passion",[9] five new camogie clubs were to be established in the county by 2015.[10]
Wexford have the following achievements in camogie.
