The Ashbourne Cup is an Irish camogie tournament played each year to determine the national champion university or third level college.^[2][3] The Ashbourne Cup is the highest division in inter-collegiate camogie. The competition features many of the current stars of the game and is sometimes known as the 'Olympics of Camogie' because of the disproportionate number of All Star and All-Ireland elite level players who participate each year^[4] Since 1972 it has been administered by the Higher Education Archived 31 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine committee of the Camogie Association. TU Dublin are the current champions, having won the Ashbourne cup in 2023.

Quick Facts Irish, Founded ...

Ashbourne Cup
Current season or competition: 2022 Ashbourne Cup
Ashbourne Cup displayed in the GAA Museum
Irish	Corn Ashbourne[1]
Founded	1915
Trophy	Ashbourne Cup see 2nd Baron Ashbourne
Title holders	Dublin City University (1st title)
Most titles	University College Dublin (35 titles)

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Each of the 4 @3rdLevelCamogie competitions follow a group stage and knockout format. Teams are generally divided into 2 groups with the top 2 in each group advancing to the semi-finals and 3rd place in both groups contesting the shield final. Each competition operates on a promotion and relegation basis.

The competition is the brainchild of Agnes O'Farrelly (1874–1951), founder member (1914) and president (1914–51) of the UCD camogie club who later served as president of the Camogie Association of Ireland in 1941–2. In 1915 she persuaded her friend, Irish language activist William Gibson, aka Liam Mac Giolla Bhríde (1868–1942), second Lord Ashbourne, to donate a trophy for the camogie intervarsity competition. The first game of intercollegiate camogie took place between University College Dublin and University College Cork on 18 April 1915. NUI Galway (then University College, Galway) joined the competition in 1916, Queen's University Belfast in 1934, and NUI Maynooth (then St Patrick's College), New University of Ulster, Coleraine, and Trinity College, Dublin in 1972. Apart from 1934 to 1937, until 1960 the competition was played on a league basis, and since then the concluding stages have been played together on a single weekend in mid-February. There was no competition in 1943, due to war-time restrictions, and the competition remained unfinished in 1963, when University College Dublin fielded an ineligible player for the final, which was drawn and never replayed. University College Cork claimed the title. The Ashbourne Cup semi finals and finals are now played alongside the Purcell (2nd Division), Fr. Meachair (3rd Division) and Uí Mhaolagáin Cups (4th Division) on the second weekend of February.

The CCAO also oversees the Purcell Cup (Division 2), which has been contested since 1977. The Purcell Cup, was donated by Úna Uí Phuirséil, President of the Camogie Association 1976–78, and her husband Pádraig Puirséil, Gaelic games correspondent for the Irish Press 1954–78. Mary Immaculate College, Limerick defeated Ulster Polytechnic by 3–0 to 0–1 in the first final in St Patrick's. Drumcondra on 6 March 1977.

Colleges who do not compete in the Ashbourne and Purcell Cups play for a cup named after Fr Gearóid Ó Meachair (Gerry Meagher, d1982), from Cappawhite, Co Tipperary, founder and popular trainer of the NUI Maynooth camogie team. Inaugurated in 1986, the Fr. Meachair Cup is now competed by both college senior and intermediate teams.

The remaining teams not in the first three championships participate in the 4th division or Uí Mhaolagáin cup, with the format following the group and knockout stages implemented in the other competitions. The trophy is named for Camogie Association President of 1991–4, Brídín Uí Mhaolagáin.^[5]

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Highlights and incidents of the championship history include:

• The 1918 competition played before record crowds of up to 4,000 for each of three matches in Terenure over the weekend of Feb 16–18, Dublin beating Cork on Friday, Galway and Cork drawing one goal each on Saturday and Dublin beating Galway 2–0 to 1–1 on Sunday to secure the trophy when Nora Cleary's goal from a 60-yard shot proving the highlight of the weekend, Margaret McGrane scoring Dublin's second goal
• Harry Diamond, member of Northern Ireland Parliament, refereed the 1935 final, the first to be hosted by Queen's University
• Some members of the UCG winning 1917 team refused to have their names engraved on the cup in the Irish language, something that brought their future selection into doubt.
• The Galway, Antrim and Dublin county boards suspended UCG, Queen's and UCD for six months for taking part in the 1949 Ashbourne Cup as they had refused instructions not to play against UCC, affiliated to the Cork board which was disaffiliated from camogie's central body for the term of a complex eight-year split in the Association.
• The inconclusive 1961 final when the Ashbourne Cup committee decided one of the UCD players was ineligible. The match was drawn 2-1 each and never replayed, with UCC claiming victory.
• The 1962 competition when snow was cleared from the field, the semi-finals played on the following day and the final completed a fortnight later when Anne Duane's late goal gave Dublin a late victory in one of the best Ashbourne cup ties of the 12-a-side era.
• Galway's breakthrough in 1965 powered by goalkeeper Eileen Naughton who held Queen's scoreless in the semi-final and Dublin could manage just one point in the final,
• The 1966 semi-final in which Dublin beat Queen's by an astonishing 17–6 to nil, as Ann Carroll inspired Dublin to victory in her first appearance in a competition where she was to become the outstanding personality over a five-year period.
• The 1969 semi-finals played in four inches of snow on the Malone Road sports fields in Belfast. The final was eventually played in Athlone when Dublin won with the help of three goals from Joan Traynor.
• In 1972 Trinity College, NUI Maynooth and the University of Ulster, Coleraine brought the number of teams competing in the Ashbourne Cup to seven
• Margery Doohan's performance in the 1970 final, her five goals won her Irish Press sports personality of the week in a year when UCD won without their injured captain Ann Carroll
• Cork's six in a row 1972–77 with players like Val O'Dwyer and Aideen McCarthy and three goal hero of 1977 Noreen McCarthy, their toughest contest in the period may have been the 1976 quarter-final 2–6 to 3–2 victory over Maynooth, one of the best matches in the 12-a-side era of Ashbourne history, in which Angela Downey scored 2-2. Maynooth came closest to winning the Fitzgibbon when it could draw on the services of the iconic Angela Downey between 1975 and 1979, appearing in two finals.
• The 1974 first round match between UCG and Queen's played in perhaps the worst conditions ever for a camogie match - the ball became lodged in a mud pool for a considerable period
• Dublin's nine victories in eleven years in the 1980s, launched by Edel Murphy's scores in a closely fought final against UCC in 1980 and spearheaded by players such as Germaine Noonan, Marie Connell and Breda Kenny in subsequent years.
• Cork's eight goals in arctic conditions at Santry in 1985, decisively defeating UCD with great displays by Claire Cronin, Patsy Kenelry and three goal hero Norma Delaney.
• The emergence of Queen's in 1991 led by Deirdre O'Doherty, Joan Tobin and Mary Black followed closely by Jordanstown in 1992 marking the high point of Colleges camogie in Ulster, followed by Limerick's victory over Waterford in an all-newcomers final in 1995 when Sinead Millea's prolific scoring gave Limerick victory.
• Limerick's breakthrough in 1995 which led to six titles in 11 years including a treble in 2004-6
• The first 15-a-side final of a major camogie competition in 1999 when Waterford celebrated their first success and the first non-University success thanks to Mary Walshe's 39th minute winning goal.
• Waterford's 2009-13 five in a row, powered by All Ireland stars from Cork and Wexford and Kilkenny, who supplied five of their forwards on the 2012 team

Until 1960 the series was played as a round robin over different weekends in the winter. The first figure in this table is the number of goals scored (equal to 3 points each) and the second total is the number of points scored, the figures are combined to determine the winner of a match in Gaelic Games. The results, dates and venues of finals since 1960 have been:

For many years a Combined Universities team was selected after the Ashbourne Cup event to play Cork county team for the Cronin Cup. Later the Combined Universities played the Combined Colleges.^[35] In 2004 the Archived 31 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Higher Education] committee of Cumann Camógaíochta na nGael instituted Ashbourne All-Stars for the best players in each position at the end of the tournament.

Purcell All-Stars were first selected from the Purcell Cup participant teams in 2006, rewarding the best players in each position at the end of the tournament.