Gaelic Games (hurling and Gaelic football) are mentioned most years somewhere on this Blog. These words are drafted in West London but they relate to sport in Ireland. Last July, in this piece, I wrote about Kilkenny’s defeat to Limerick in the All-Ireland hurling final.

Kilkenny, my father’s county, has been the most successful hurling county overall, with 36 All-Ireland titles. Since 2010 my mother’s county, Dublin, has been the most successful football county: 9 All-Ireland wins including an unprecedented 6-in-a-row between 2015 and 2020.

The dominant hurling county in recent seasons has been Limerick, with four All-Ireland titles in a row (2020-23) matching Kilkenny’s achievements between 2006 and 2009. Kerry have won more football titles than any other, 37 up to their most recent win in 2022.

Last season’s finals saw all four of these teams pitted against each other: Kilkenny v Limerick as mentioned above, and Dublin beat Kerry in the football final.

After last weekend’s results we now know that none of last year’s finalists have made it to a final this year. Dublin lost out to Galway at the quarter-final stage of the football a few weeks ago. Last Saturday Kerry were beaten in extra-time by Armagh in the football semi-final. The weekend before that, Kilkenny and Limerick lost their hurling semi-finals, to Clare and Cork respectively.

Clare v Cork, next Sunday, is a repeat of the 2013 final, the only time between 2006 and 2015 that Kilkenny did not make it that far. The following Sunday, Armagh and Galway will contest the football final. This has never happened before.

It’s been a strange Gaelic season, but the last few seasons have all felt a a bit odd to me, because of the new timings. For most of the last hundred years the finals in both codes have been played in September. This year will be the third year in a row that the games are concluded before the end of July. It doesn’t feel right for the season to end just as the school holidays begin.

The new timings also seem to have had a terrible effect on Kilkenny. Since 1914 the county have only ever won the title in September. The 2019 final was played in August and they lost to Tipperary. The 1959 final was drawn and the replay was in October: Kilkenny lost to Waterford, who have not won the All-Ireland since. Next year it will be 10 years since Kilkenny last won the title, equalling the longest drought in the county’s history since they first won it in 1904. There were no wins between 1922 and 1932 or between 1947 and 1957. We can now add 2015 to 2025 to that list and hope that that’s as far as it goes. If not, I will no doubt view 2025 as another strange Gaelic season.