Donegal county hurling team


The Donegal county hurling team represents Donegal in hurling and is governed by Donegal GAA, the county board of the Gaelic Athletic Association. The team competes in the Christy Ring Cup and the National Hurling League.
Donegal's home ground is MacCumhaill Park, Ballybofey. The team's manager is Mickey McCann.
The team last won the Ulster Senior Championship in 1932, but has never won the All-Ireland Senior Championship or the National League.
WWW donegalgaa.ie/hurling

History

Donegal has three senior and four junior Ulster hurling titles, the last senior win coming in 1932.
Donegal has a residue of pre-GAA hurling. The Burt Hibernians brought Donegal the 1906 Ulster Senior Hurling Championship, defeating Antrim by 25 points to one. Burt later played in Derry. In 1923 Donegal fielded a team of three natives augmented with Gardaí and customs officers from hurling counties to win its second Ulster SHC. When they lined out for the semi-final, wearing blue jerseys against Limerick on a cold, miserable day in Croke Park, numbers were worn by the players for the first time to help the spectators to distinguish them. The team trailed 5–4 to nil at half-time and lost 7–4 to 0–1.
Donegal was National Hurling League Division Three champion in 2001.
Led by Eamon Campbell, Donegal reached the final of the 2006 Nicky Rackard Cup, the first time the team had achieved this, only to be defeated by Derry.
The county reached the final of the 2009 Lory Meagher Cup, only to be defeated by Tyrone.
Donegal won the 2011 Lory Meagher Cup.
Ray Durack was manager of the county team from January 2012 until May 2015. He led Donegal to the 2013 Nicky Rackard Cup. As Nicky Rackard winners, Donegal would have expected to compete in the 2014 Christy Ring Cup. However, due to restructure of the competitions, Donegal were not promoted to the 2014 Christy Ring Cup. Durack then brought the county to Division 2B of the National Hurling League in 2014. Ardal McDermott succeeded Durack as manager, serving between 2015 and 2017 and leading the county back to Division 2B of the National Hurling League in 2017, after the team were relegated the previous year.
On 25 October 2017, the county board announced Mickey McCann's appointment as senior manager on a two-year contract, with the possibility of a third year in charge also mentioned. The county board had specifically identified him after all candidates nominated for the position were rejected as unsuitable. McCann led Donegal to first competitive victories over Derry and Down in the 2018 National Hurling League. The 2018 Nicky Rackard Cup followed.
Relegation from 2B to 3A followed in 2019, promotion to 2B followed in 2020.
Donegal defeated Mayo in the 2020 Nicky Rackard Cup Final; in doing so, the county became the first to win the competition on three occasions. However, the 2020 win did not secure passage back to the 2021 Christy Ring Cup, a condition that was not made clear until shortly before the final.

Panel

Management team

Managerial history

Players

Captaincy

Awards

denotes that a player also won Player of the Year for the year in question.
2018:, Stephen Gillespie
2020: Seán McVeigh,
2023: Luke White, Danny Cullen2nd
2024: Stephen Gillespie,2nd Gerard Gilmore,
Champion 15 by club
  • 2018 – Coulter, Gillespie
  • 2020 – Cullen, McVeigh
  • 2023 – White, Cullen
  • 2024 – Gillespie, Gilmore, McKinney
Nicky Rackard Cup All Star Awards
Lory Meagher Cup Champion 15 Awards
Nicky Rackard Cup All Star Awards

Player of the Year

1989 Eugene Sherry

Honours

National

Provincial