With just over a week to go until a ball is thrown in, the TG4 All-Ireland ladies football championships have launched with Carlow and Kilkenny set to see another round of championship football action next month.
Stars from the competing counties gathered at Croke Park on Monday to officially launch the 2023 TG4 All-Ireland Ladies Football Championships. All roads lead to GAA headquarters on Sunday 13 August, which will be an historic occasion to mark the 50th TG4 All-Ireland Senior Championship Final. The very first All-Ireland Senior Final, won by Tipperary, was played in Durrow, Co. Laois, in 1974.
With the 2023 TG4 Provincial Championships coming to an end at the weekend – including Carlow taking the Junior title at the expense of Kilkenny – , the groups for the All-Ireland Senior and Intermediate Championships have been populated.
All-Ireland groups
At senior level, defending champions Meath, aiming for a third successive TG4 All-Ireland Senior title, will look to regroup after losing the Leinster Final to Dublin, and the Royal County now find themselves alongside Ulster champions Donegal, and Waterford, in Group B of the All-Ireland series.
Group A features Connacht champions Mayo, Ulster runners-up Armagh, and Laois, while Leinster champions Dublin, Lidl National League Division 1 champions Kerry, who lost to Cork in this past weekend’s Munster Final, and Cavan will play in Group C. Group D is made up of Munster champions Cork, Connacht runners-up Galway, and Tipperary.
In the intermediate championship, 2021 and 2022 All-Ireland finalists Wexford lost to Kildare in this weekend’s Leinster Final, and are pitted with Connacht champions Roscommon, and Monaghan, in Group C. Kildare are in Group A with Leitrim and Louth, with Clare, Tyrone, Offaly and Wexford in a four-team Group B. In Group D, newly-crowned Ulster Intermediate champions Antrim, who were the 2022 TG4 All-Ireland Junior winners, will battle it out with Longford and Westmeath.
Kilkenny have been drawn in Group A of the junior championship alongside Sligo, Limerick and Down while Carlow are in Group B with Derry, London and Fermanagh. The first round of junior games take place on Sunday 18 June.
Speaking at Monday’s launch, Bermingham suggested Carlow are aiming to go one step further this year and make it to Croke Park in August.
“I’m really looking forward to it now”, says Bermingham. “We’ve put in so much hard work for months so this is what we’re training for. I’m really looking forward to it to start (sic). The previous two years we’ve gotten to the semi-final so we’re hoping this year that we’ll break that trend and get to the All-Ireland final in Croke Park, hopefully.”
In the senior and intermediate Championships, two teams will emerge from each group to contest the quarter-finals, with the top two teams in each of the Junior groups progressing to the semi-finals.
The 2023 TG4 All-Ireland Finals will be staged as a triple-header once again at Croke Park on Sunday August 13, with the Junior Final at 11.45am, followed by the Intermediate decider at 1.45pm and the Senior Final at 4pm.
Watch: TG4 All-Ireland Ladies Football Championship Launch
The LGFA and TG4 have also confirmed that all other games that are not being televised in the TG4 All-Ireland Championships will be available to view via the LGFA’s live-streaming service. Details here.
