Hurling's green shoots blossom at Connacht Táin Óg Finals
The Tooren hurlers who won the Division 1 Cup at the Connacht Táin Óg U14 finals.
By John Harrington
The sun shone in Bekan on Wednesday evening and the young hurlers of the province lit up the Connacht Centre of Excellence with their skill.
The 2026 Táin Óg Connacht U14 Finals was a great showcase of how the game is really starting to thrive in the developing counties.
16 teams from all over Connacht as well as Longford produced some cracking matches that bodes well for the future of the game in the clubs that took part.
“I was very impressed with the standard of play,” says Connacht GAA Director of Hurling, Damien Curley.
“It's stepping stone now to the national finals when they're up against the Ulster teams on Sunday week and there was great excitement and good buzz around it on the night.
“In fairness to the clubs they really embraced the competition this year. You can see that there's a lot of kids in those pockets and those outlying clubs that are doing a lot of work and certainly have huge potential.”
The Ballina Stephenites hurlers who won the Division 3 Cup at the Connacht Táin Óg U14 finals.
The genius of the Táin Óg is that it wipes away county and provincial boundaries and give clubs in developing counties a greater number of meaningful matches than they could possibly have from playing teams within their own county bounds.
What began solely as an U-13 competition now has three age-groups – U-14, U-16, U-18 – with the player pathway completed by the rapidly growing Cúchulainn hurling league for adult club hurlers which began in 2022.
“The Táin Óg has huge merits as a competition,” says Curley.
“I firmly believe that the club is where hurling has to thrive first and foremost and if we get that side of it going well then there’s a better chance of the level of inter-county hurling rising in developing counties in the years to come.
“The Táin Óg can be hugely beneficial where it's played in the right spirit and where there's a real will within a club area to drive hurling.
“Having our finals in a central venue like Bekan worked really well and there's definitely merit to having more of these sorts of occasions from a promotional point of view and to also give kids the opportunity to play on good pitches with a bit of an atmosphere around it.”
The Athleague/Tremane/Oran hurlers who won the Division 2 Cup at the Connacht Táin Óg U14 finals.
Two of the clubs taking part on the night were Tooreen from Mayo and Easkey from Sligo.
Their senior teams reached the All-Ireland Intermediate and Junior Club Finals respectively last year and were both very unlucky to lose them, so they’re great examples of what can be achieved in developing counties if you put the effort in.
“Both clubs have made great strides over the last couple of years and it would have been absolutely brilliant if they could have won those finals but they've left their mark regardless by getting there and they've taken scalps along the way,” says Curley.
“In fairness to Tooreen and Easkey, when games are fixed, they play them. They don't look for cheap excuses or an easy way out. They go for it. And I think that's the big thing to be learned from it. If you embrace it you will improve, and I see some of the other clubs beginning to do the same.
“They've probably looked at what Tooreen and Easkey have done and have said, 'Right, this is what they're doing, let's try and replicate that.'
“In Connacht, we produced a hurling development plan last year that that is very much geared around helping the club game become extremely positive and vibrant in the province
“We want to gain a couple of clubs, if at all possible, at a time when the demographics are telling us that it will be extremely difficult.
“We're looking at different models like combined teams so at least children will get a chance to experience hurling and get a hurl in their hand and see what it's like because we know that if they do get that opportunity they thrive.
“Strokestown won a Cumann na mBunscol hurling title in Roscommon on Wednesday which would be virtually unheard of, but they put a block of work in over the winter with their U8s, U9s, and U10s in an indoor facility and I'd say it probably played a major part in them winning the thing.
“What I'd love would be for those sorts of things not to happen in isolation, that that could become a common theme in the province over the next couple of years.”
