Antrim Hurling

[Na Glinntí Glasa]

There's grading lists surely, but depending on the club in question and available resources depends on how many you grade. And due to several balls up by the NA divisional board over the years, declining interest in this once great competition and declining numbers, there seems to be a leniency that allows ye to play across the competitions. The old way of if you played senior feis, you couldn't play down and so on, seems to have gone and with it, the integrity of the competition.
Not that will bother the current occupiers of the 'top' roles in the divisional board. They do what they want, run it like a boys club, meetings badly attended and on when they want them. And you only have to look at the debacle today where the players from Naomh Padraig and Creggan were forced to choose either playing for their club in a final or playing for their county. Madness.

And don't get us started as to why the glens feis is taken out of the actual glens never mind glenariffe. A farce. 

Glenariffe hosted it the past two years. They didn't want to do it this year.

no one from the glens wanted to host it

Dunloy when asked said yes.

No great farce about it. There's a lot of work in hosting the games for three days.

It involves people having to be there at the clubs all weekend doing that work. organizing the pitches, scoreboards, cleaning up the rubbish, doing the shops etc.

[SaffronSports]

Just look at today. Our national sport has an all Ireland semi final. What do they do, fire the feis finals on at the same time. Madness. And absolute arrogance. An absolute joke. And before the usuals come on and say 'sure offer your help' the offers are there, proposals have been made, but the bigwigs in charge know best and show complete ignorance towards others. Our way or the highway scenario. A trip to Dublin this morning from Belfast was much more appealing than a trip to Dunloy to watch reserve teams slug it out for Senior feis finals. Serious rethink needed within the whole county.

The Feis weekend was held the past two years over the 11th/12th July.

The clubs asked for this to be moved away from it due to a clash with players/managments etc all going on holidays. The weekend before was suggested and agreed.

This was also cleared with Antrim GAA early in the year to keep it free from fixtures to allow all of this to be played.

Prior to this it was played in June which was also deemed not able to work according to the clubs.

It was moved to the 4th/5th. The clubs agreed to this in April.

What other weekend do you suggest would work?

The one that clashes with holidays? The one that clashes with the All Ireland football championship? the one that clashes with the U21 championship?

You cant please everyone so it has to go somehwere or do we just delete parts of our traditions and culture that doenst suit you?

You'd 100% be better holding the Feis on a Football weekend. Good to see it being included with the Rasharkin vs Cloughmills match but for the majority of the clubs there's much more interest in the hurling.

[podge]

There's grading lists surely, but depending on the club in question and available resources depends on how many you grade. And due to several balls up by the NA divisional board over the years, declining interest in this once great competition and declining numbers, there seems to be a leniency that allows ye to play across the competitions. The old way of if you played senior feis, you couldn't play down and so on, seems to have gone and with it, the integrity of the competition.
Not that will bother the current occupiers of the 'top' roles in the divisional board. They do what they want, run it like a boys club, meetings badly attended and on when they want them. And you only have to look at the debacle today where the players from Naomh Padraig and Creggan were forced to choose either playing for their club in a final or playing for their county. Madness.

And don't get us started as to why the glens feis is taken out of the actual glens never mind glenariffe. A farce. 

Glenariffe hosted it the past two years. They didn't want to do it this year.

no one from the glens wanted to host it

Dunloy when asked said yes.

No great farce about it. There's a lot of work in hosting the games for three days.

It involves people having to be there at the clubs all weekend doing that work. organizing the pitches, scoreboards, cleaning up the rubbish, doing the shops etc.

Dunloy were great hosts from what I saw. I wouldn't underestimate the time and effort involved for one minute.

I do think there are other very fair challenges being made around the timing of some of the matches clashing with development squads and the grading lists - the fact that at least one player (maybe more ) played junior
Feis, countess of Antrim and senior Feis finals doesn't seem right. 

It would just be great to see some of those challenges acknowledged,  discussed and acted on if necessary, rather than what seems to be a policy of simply defend the position to  the extreme.

[Na Glinntí Glasa]

There are meetings, of which i attended, and the grading is discussed and agreed by the club reps.

If anything the grading was changed in the junior league to reduce it to help the clubs who are at intermediate level so they dont have to grade as many players, thus allowing them more freedom to field in the games.

The NA fixtures were released in April of which every club was sent. Individual coaches do request the spreadsheet of fixtures of which they were given if their club didnt distribute them.

Last year there were conversations about moving games on a saturday away to allow the designated development squad dates to be left free. NA did listen to those requests and didnt fix any games on those dates - dates that were given to NA. These dates were included in the master planner that was issued to all of the clubs.

They also leave free the Antrim football/hurling feile weekend and also the national/regional feile weekends.

One of the biggest gripes that came back at the end of 2025 was parents (from different clubs) complaining about games being cancelled due to development squads. Clubs didn't play the games due to small numbers being missing - or the reality being it was their best players - so clubs wont play without them.

They told NA that this was unfair to see so many kids miss out on a game or see it simply cancelled due to a few players missing. Why cant their kid get a match if they aren't good enough for a county panel was the question.

Is there a perfect calendar in the year to make it all work? No, but the idea is to try and get the games played for all the children as best as possible. And just like 2025 you take on board the comments from clubs about that year and sit down again to try and make it perfect - if ever at all possible!

The NA games are now finished for everyone over 14 so now they can go on holidays, get back to training etc and prepare for championships coming up at the end of July/start of August.

[paddyjohn]

Fair play for coming and explaining it is such simple terms.

Dunloy as usual put on a fantastic display of how clubs should host games. Couldn't do enough to help people.

[Na Glinntí Glasa]

Personally the grading does need to be altered slightly as you seen it in the intermediate Countess of Antrim cup with stronger players getting to play but with only 12 graded its really not the clubs fault.

If the grading does need to be changed the clubs need to request it at the end of the year to be on the agm and it voted on.

It would be good to see more clubs attend the NA meetings as it is poorly attended with some clubs never going. You cant change anything if you never go to these things.

Some day we will get it to suit everyone 

[podge]

I get the low numbers required to be graded for junior league, as that would presumably result in more games being played. 

It could be worth looking at higher numbers of grading being required for junior feis, CoA and senior feis.  Or even back to the old days of if someone plays in one of the higher levels comps they can't play in a lower one in that season.

[Na Glinntí Glasa]

The camogie have that approach for grading in the Feis & championship - you send in a 'graded list' of agreed seniors and anyone outside of that can play down.

However when you play up you are therefore graded and cant play again down.

It has its draw backs as clubs then use players and then come further on into the comps they dont have enough players and end up pulling out of the games.

It maybe needs to be changed to 15 for the foreseeable but it needs the clubs to ask for it and vote on it. I dont personally see any objection to 15 being graded. It might make it more competitive for other clubs to get further in the cups.

If anything the camogie feis is very poorly attended by the clubs. Only three entered the senior feis and three the junior feis. It does need work to be redone and changed up - suggestions of which were given to Antrim camogie earlier this year by NA but nothing was ever done about it.

[Jonkunlon]

Grading lists have been asked of North Antrim for viewing this past two years by more than one club, North Antrim have refused to share them. Surely Glinnti Glasa you can see how damaging this is to the divisional board. The previous regime had them available on the website. Why the cover up? Our senior manager asked for them the past two seasons - here is the response from the North Antrim Secretary...

"Tell me which player you are concerned about and I'll look into it"

[MalluskMan]

Great to have Na Glinnti Glasna on replying. And great that he attends the meetings. Not many do due to their farcical nature. He will therefore be able to tell us the actual reason that Glenariffe didn't want to host it. The version I heard from them isn't a pretty read on NA behalf.
Dunloy did an excellent job, as any club would, out of respect for the competition. But it wouldn't have been difficult, attendances were pathetic.

Senior clubs grade 15 players. So that means a club that gets promoted from division 2 into senior league, suddenly goes from 8/12 graded players (club dependent) into grading 15 players as if by magic they've spawned players because of promotion. Talk about developing hurling!!

We also had more than one player from the secretary's club who played in all three feis hurling competitions. The NA chairman's club or former club, not sure if he's still a member there, pulled out of the senior competition.
There's more I'm sure, but we will let the oracle that is na glinnti  glasna reply first.

[Na Glinntí Glasa]

Grading lists have been asked of North Antrim for viewing this past two years by more than one club, North Antrim have refused to share them. Surely Glinnti Glasa you can see how damaging this is to the divisional board. The previous regime had them available on the website. Why the cover up? Our senior manager asked for them the past two seasons - here is the response from the North Antrim Secretary...

"Tell me which player you are concerned about and I'll look into it"

Its not really a great secret the grading lists. Every club submitted one this year and no one put anyone down who isnt in the country or retired ten years ago 

if you want them on the website it can be done with very little hassle i would say. There's no great cover up there trying to protect one or more club in these cups or leagues.

Does Antrim county board send out their grading lists to the clubs? Im pretty sure they dont, nor are those posted on the county website so why is no one panicking about these??? you dont get to see them nor get to have them sent to you so why the massive concern about north antrims?

Cushendall, Loughgiel, Dunloy, Ballycastle all submitted 24 players to grade for the cups - as they have done this last few years. All of them are playing this year.

Carey asked for the grading list to be reduced down for the junior league to help them, and other clubs like them, be able to have more players available for that league. It was reduced down to 10 for them, which all the clubs agreed and was passed at the AGM. Again, done and agreed to help teams be able to field in the junior league.

If you look at the winners of the cups this last few years it doesnt show any sort of pattern that grading is off as the cups move around the teams.

McCaughan Cup (Junior)
2023 Cushendun
2024 Armoy
2025 Armoy
2025 Loughgiel

Junior Feis Cup
2023 Cloughmills
2024 Armoy
2025 Dunloy
2026 Loughgiel

Countess of Antrim (Intermediate)
2021 Carey
2022 Loughgiel
2023 Cushendall
2024 Shane O'Neills
2025 Oisins
2025 Loughgiel

[Na Glinntí Glasa]

Great to have Na Glinnti Glasna on replying. And great that he attends the meetings. Not many do due to their farcical nature. He will therefore be able to tell us the actual reason that Glenariffe didn't want to host it. The version I heard from them isn't a pretty read on NA behalf.
Dunloy did an excellent job, as any club would, out of respect for the competition. But it wouldn't have been difficult, attendances were pathetic.

Senior clubs grade 15 players. So that means a club that gets promoted from division 2 into senior league, suddenly goes from 8/12 graded players (club dependent) into grading 15 players as if by magic they've spawned players because of promotion. Talk about developing hurling!!

We also had more than one player from the secretary's club who played in all three feis hurling competitions. The NA chairman's club or former club, not sure if he's still a member there, pulled out of the senior competition.
There's more I'm sure, but we will let the oracle that is na glinnti  glasna reply first.

Glenariffe didn't want to host as they had done it two years in a row and didn't want to take it on again this year. Its not any great reason other than they did their bit, and a great job they did for the two years they took it on.

It hard work hosting for the 2/3 days for the clubs and their vols over that weekend so you don't blame them for not wanting to do this year after year.

The truth is that no clubs came forward at the start when asked to host for 2026. Dunloy were then approached after another club turned it down and they said yes - and a great job they did.


Grading

No one has to grade 15 players.

All clubs have to grade 12 players if you have a second team entering a cup ie senior feis cup and Countess of Antrim Cup (intermediate level cup) then anyone outside of that 12 players can play down.

If you have three teams entering you have to grade 24 players. So senior feis cup, countess of antrim (intermediate level) and McCaughan Cup (Junior level). So yes, it means a lad could play in all three cups and not be cup tied out.

Is that really a bad thing to allow some younger, or lads on the edges of panels, get to play more games? If you go down the route of you play up you are out youll find teams struggling to field in games with the reduced numbers.

This way it gets more people playing games.

As per my post above, the junior league grading was reduced from 12 players to 10, as per Careys request at the AGM, so it would help the clubs at intermediate level get more players to be able to field in those games.

All in the name of helping to develop hurling.

[Hectic]

I'm a little surprised by the importance suddenly being given to winning a North Antrim Feis competition.

At juvenile level, and to an extent at adult levels also, I always thought the real value was in giving more players games in Championship style competition.

It inevitably coincided with holidays so generally saw teams go deeper into their squads anyway.

[NorthAntrimSaff]

When a player gets MOTM and two goals in a junior final and starts the senior final the next day i think eyebrows have to be raised. According to the match report on the SG Loughgiel had twelve subs. Is that Loughgiels mentality? Win at all costs?

There were rumours a few years ago about LG reserves entering the Derry league to get the boys more game time. This makes a mockery of that argument now

[Jonkunlon]

Their wing half back started all three North Antrim finals, captained the Countess of Antrim Team. This is definitely not developing a squad. It looks really bad on Loughgiel and the North Antrim secretary who is facilitating it for his own club.

The county board share grading lists at the start of every season. The Chair of CCC lets nothing slide. He's meticulous and to the letter of the law. North Antrim is a free for all and should have been done away with years ago.