The 1945 All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship was the high point of the 1945 season in Camogie. The championship was won by Antrim, who defeated Waterford by a six-point margin in the final.
Structure
Because of the splits in the Association and the disaffiliation of the Leinster counties only three teams entered the championship from outside Ulster. Waterford won the Munster championship for the first time when they defeated Tipperary 4–1 to 2–1 and received a bye to the All-Ireland final as Leinster had withdrawn from the Camogie Association.
Final
Antrim's team travelled by five cars in wartime to Waterford for the final.
Final stages
Match Rules
50 minutes
Replay if scores level
Maximum of 3 substitutions
Alternative All-Ireland final
A complex series of disagreements, splits in the Camogie Association, the foundation of two new bodies, and other altercations between the years 1939 and 1952 had a series impact on the All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship and led to the absence of the two most prominent camogie-playing counties Cork and Dublin among several others.
Dublin missed the All Ireland championships of 1939, 1940, 1945 and 1946, in a dispute over the ban on hockey players and was represented by a one club selection in 1941, 1947 and 1948, the CIÉ Club. As a result of a separate dispute over male officials Cork missed the eight championships between 1944 and 1952.
On the first year both were non participants they staged an "alternative" All Ireland final.
From the outset events in the Camogie Association did not follow the normal course of events in sporting disputes.
Alternative All-Ireland final: Dublin
When Dublin proposed that the ban on hockey players be removed in 1939 a special delegate conference was called. Ulster Council wanted a single delegate per county at this conference, in effect enabling them to outvote Dublin, which had three quarters of the members and half the registered clubs of the association at the time.
Ulster Council then organised a boycott of the special delegate conference at which the Dublin and Kildare delegates unanimously removed the ban on hockey players. The rest of the affiliated counties seceded en masse as did the Central Council of the Camogie Association, but not, crucially the president Máire Gill or the secretary Esther Ryan. The Dublin-based Camogie Association life president Agnes O'Farrelly and the energetic national organiser Sean O'Duffy kept contact with both sides.
This left Dublin and its client clubs in Leinster as the only remaining members of the "old association" while the rest discussed a "new" National Camógaíocht Association at Jury's Hotel in Dublin on 23 July 1939. It was established soon afterwards at a meeting in Jury's Hotel on 26 August, at which Rosemary Marron of Antrim presided, with Jean Condon from Ashbourne as its president. Delegates attended from Wexford, Meath and Cork as well as the Ulster counties and letters of support were read from Galway, Louth and a few Dublin clubs that were in favour of the retention of the ban. They sought the help of the GAA to further their objectives and expected to stage their All-Ireland final at Croke Park on the first Sunday that the ground was available in November.
Dublin's strong league structure and access to playing fields in the Phoenix Park enabled it to carry on as normal without any change to practice. In the meantime the National Camógaíocht Association organised the All Ireland championships in 1939 and 1940, albeit without the O'Duffy Cup, which remained in Dublin custody. In 1941 the CIÉ Club affiliated to the Central Council and qualified for the All Ireland semi-final, setting an important precedent and putting Dublin's position of isolation under pressure.
In October 1941 Pádraig Ó Caoimh, General Secretary of the GAA mediated a settlement under which Dublin reaffiliated, Máire Gill and Esther Ryan stood down, Lil Kirby was elected new president and Jean McHugh became new secretary of the Camogie Association. The reaffiliated Dublin team met Cork in the All Ireland finals of 1942 and 1943, re-establishing their hegemony as the two leading counties in the game.