Ulster Championship 2026: Let the games begin

The Ulster Championship kicks into action with Sunday’s showdown between Armagh and Tyrone. Michael McMullan takes a look why it remains one of the best competitions in the calander.

THERE is just something about Clones. Not everybody gets it, but Ulster Gaels, they just know.

It’s a step back in time. A lick of paint is welcome in places. The toilets could do with an upgrade. The media are praying the WiFi holds up. Getting home is a test of patience.

These things are all true but, if the sun makes an appearance, Ulster final day is just one of those magical days. It’s Mecca for us who love it.

Driving in from Monaghan, once the chapel on the hill comes into view, there is just an acceptance you are going off the grid for the rest of the day.

The last few years have rubberstamped its goodness. Penalties. Extra-time. Derry ending a famine. Donegal hanging on last year. Finnbarr Roarty keeping the ball in an absolute pressure cooker to see it out. Armagh parking the hurt to launch an assault on Sam.

The outside world can wait: The sights and twists of a super Saturday in Clones

There was 1984 and Frank McGuigan. A sea of Monaghan blue in 2013. Anyone lucky enough to see their county win in Clones will know. It’s magic.

When the Derry players were preparing their climb from Division Three, Rory Gallagher kept telling him how they were going to love the bus journey into Clones, taking right at the Creighton and up Church Hill.

It was the drip-feeding of belief they eventually bought into. With every penny in their pocket.

Pain of defeat

Jim McGuinness knew the value of winning Ulster from the years looking on through the pain of defeat.

When he took over Donegal for his first stint, the players were kitted out in casual homecoming gear after the game. All matching. Shoes and all.

Any team coming home as Ulster champions needed to look like a team. Together. Smart. Tidy.

When the league final ebbed into Ulster champo week last year, there was only ever going to be one winner. Ulster matters more. Jim and Donegal went all in on beating Derry.

I can remember some of Derry’s days in Clones. In my late teens, Tad’s tours was in full flow. A bus leaving Maghera. A good fry in a diner somewhere along Fermanagh Street. A duck into the now defunct Bursted Sofa for a few pints and a dander up for the minor game.

Earlier than that, as a gasán, I can remember standing on my parents’ icebox as ‘Scotchy’ Conway landed an equaliser that took the ’89 final to a replay.

I was there to watch Derry minors but that image of a curling pressure kick is still imprinted. Donegal people still say it was never a free. I tend to agree. Drama nonetheless.

There was the emptiness after Donegal beat Derry in the ’92 final. The league title annexed weeks earlier was history.

The pitch was dug up the next morning and I can remember kicking about on it, just as we left for home.

By the following year, the new pitch was laid but the deluge of rain turned it into a swamp but Derry skated enough to take the Ulster title they craved.

Twelves months on, in ’94, it was thronged with fans again. This time in the sun, with the urban legend of James McCartan having his boot flung into the crowd. Paul Donnelly’s name was bandied about as the guilty party. Ach, sure it adds to the intrigue.

There is just something about Clones that I have never forgotten. The same memories flood back every time I take a dander around the town on matchdays.

It’s the same with Munster hurling fanatics dodging around Liberty Square in Thurles. If you know, you know.

Out of the tunnel

There are nine teams heading out on the road to Clones, starting this weekend. The ambitious ones will dream of running from the bowels of the Gerry Arthurs’ stand, weak at knees with the roar and parading around after the band.

Donegal have the chance to do something they’ve never done – keep a hold on the Anglo Celt Cup for a third successive winter.

They are on the crowded side of the draw. Armagh have a much better season than the keyboard warrior gives them credit for. ‘Geezer’ seems to be packing a punch with Oisin O’Neill and Conor Turbitt coming off the bench.

Tyrone have been stuttering along. I do think there will be a sting in them. If they can take their lead from Mattie Donnelly, the Red Hands will give Armagh all they want. And more.

Derry are on the easier side of the draw for once. Antrim will try to plot a trap but it’s hard to see them outlasting the Oakleafers.

Monaghan and Cavan are once again at loggerheads. As it stands, neither are contenders. That won’t matter when they meet. It will be a battle within the battle.

I do think the overall championship landscape is closing in on the provincials. It’s sad to have to say that. I can see why teams will prioritise freshness ahead of a tilt at Sam versus scrapping away for an Ulster title.

There is a footballing romantic in me though. While I loved Derry winning their back-to-back titles, there was something wholesome about last summer’s Ulster final.

Dublin and Kerry have won the most All-Irelands. The rest of the counties aren’t Dublin or Kerry.

There is a cup well worth winning every summer in Clones. We need to accept that and Ulster counties looking to ride both horses, Ulster and Sam, must deepen their squads.

Donegal are favourites. Derry are the fancied horse to pull up beside them on Ulster final day.

That will all be irrelevant when Armagh and Tyrone dinge into each other on Sunday. Let the games begin…..