GAA Interprovincial Championship

The GAA Interprovincial Championship (Irish: An Corn Idir-Chúigeach) or Railway Cup (Corn an Iarnróid) is the name of two annual Gaelic football and hurling competitions held between the provinces of Ireland. The Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster GAA teams are composed of the best players from the counties in each province. The games are organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association.

The Railway Cup was a revival of the Railway Shield which ran from 1905 to 1907 (football) and from 1905 to 1908 (hurling). The first Railway Cup competitions (the name is due to the donation of the trophy by Irish Rail) were held in 1927, with Munster winning the first football title and Leinster winning the first hurling title. Presently, Ulster hold the record for the most football Railway Cup wins with 30, while Munster has won the most hurling titles with 43. The longest hurling streak was Munster's six-in-a-row from 1948 to 1953, while Ulster won a football five-in-a-row from 1991 to 1995.

The Railway Cup has gone into severe decline in recent years. Some blame the GAA for this decline due to the low level of promotion given and the lack of a fixed date to be played each year. The finals, held on Saint Patrick's Day, attracted huge crowds in the 1950s and 1960s, however, by the 1990s attendances at the once prestigious competition had reduced to only a few hundred. The All-Ireland Club Finals have superseded them in popularity and have taken over the Saint Patrick's Day fixture in Croke Park.

The GAA Interprovincial Hurling Championship (known for sponsorship reasons as the M Donnelly Interpro and formerly referred to as the Railway Cup) was an annual inter-provincial hurling competition organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association and traditionally contested by the four historic provinces of Ireland, deciding the competition winners through a knockout format. Starting in 1927, it was contested until its abolition in 2017.

Connacht, Leinster and Munster were the first participating provinces, before being joined by Ulster in 1944 and the Combined Universities in 1972. The final, traditionally held at Croke Park on St. Patrick's Day, was the culmination of a series of knock-out games, with the winning team receiving the Railway Cup. At its peak it was one of the most prestigious competitions in Gaelic games, with players regarding it as a great honour to be included on their provincial team. Crowds of up to 50,000 regularly attended the final, however, interest waned since its heyday with only 562 attending the last final in 2016.

The title was won by three different teams, all of whom won the title more than once. The all-time record-holders are Munster, who won the championship on 47 occasions.

After the success of the inter-county All-Ireland Championship, which had been held since 1887, the Gaelic Athletic Association launched an inter-provincial competition in 1905. Sponsored by the Great Southern and Western Railway, the Railway Shield ran until 1908 when the competition ended after Leinster retained the title for a second successive year.

After a lapse of nearly 20 years, the idea of an inter-provincial tournament was resurrected. The Railway Cup, once again sponsored by the Great Southern Railways, was first held in 1927, with Ulster being the only province not to field a team. The very first match took place at Portlaoise on 21 November 1926, with Leinster beating Connacht by 7-06 to 3-05. Leinster went on to win the inaugural title after a 1-11 to 2-06 win over Munster in the final. The holding of the final at Croke Park on St. Patrick's Day (17 March) set a precedent that linked the competition to that date for many years to follow.