Founded 1912 First winner Tipperary | Title holders Kerry (17th title) | |
Irish Craobh Sóisear Peile na hÉireann Most titles Cork, Kerry (17 titles) | ||
The All-Ireland Junior Football Championship is a GAA competition for junior Gaelic football inter-county teams in Ireland. The definition of what constitutes a junior player differs from county to county. In some, the junior team is the second team after the senior team. This means that any players who have not played with the senior team can play with the junior team. In others, such as Cork and Kerry, players can only be chosen from clubs that play in junior or intermediate grades. These counties cannot choose players from senior clubs, even if they are not on the senior county team. When a team wins this championship, it has to pick a new team for the following year. No player can thus be on a winning team for two successive years. Currently, Ulster does not participate in this championship, Cavan the 2014 champions represented Leinster in the absence of an Ulster competition.
Cork were the 2011 champions and are currently the most successful county in the competition's history, having lifted the title on seventeen occasions. The 2008 championship was won by Dublin for the first time since 1960. Sligo defeated Kerry in 2010 to win their first title since 1935.
For the bulk of this competition's history, the winners of the provincial championships met to decide who was the "Home" winner. This team then met the champion county in Great Britain to determine the All-Ireland champion.