The 2013 M Donnelly Interprovincial Hurling and Football Championships will be run off next spring, the GAA has confirmed.

MARTIN DONNELLY has confirmed he will sponsor the interprovincial championships next month.

RAILWAY Cups patron Martin Donnelly is awaiting a call from the GAA about again becoming involved in the sponsorship of the competitions.

JIMMY SMYTH, Clare hurler extraordinaire, witnessed the spectacle of All-Ireland finals from a perspective he never experienced as a player — after joining the staff in Croke Park as an executive officer.

The Interprovincial Football and Hurling Championships, formerly known as the Railway Cups, are poised to return to the GAA calendar in 2012.

TIPPERARY stars and officials paid tribute to John Doyle yesterday.

ULSTER Council secretary Danny Murphy has warned against plans to kill off the Railway Cup.

DELEGATES were in no real mood to embrace changes in the playing rules experimented in the subsidiary competitions and the league in the early motions debated at last night’s opening session of the GAA Congress in Newcastle, Co. Down.

BETTER for sponsor extraordinaire Martin Donnelly that he attended the other inter-provincial football semi-final in Crossmaglen.

CLARE expect to have centre-back Gerry Quinn back in action for the Allianz NHL clash with Tipperary at Semple Stadium, Thurles on Sunday.

NO OTHER competition organised by the GAA generates such conflicting emotions as the interprovincial games in hurling and football, for so long known as the Railway Cups.

They’re tied on 30 All-Ireland titles each, but there’s more at stake at Croke Park tomorrow for Cork and Kilkenny than statistics. Stars of the 70’s, Cork’s Brian Murphy and Kilkenny’s Phil ‘Fan’ Larkin discuss battles past and tomorrow’s semi-final with Diarmuid O’Flynn.

Long-serving Down senior goalkeeper Mickey McVeigh has announced his decision to retire from the inter-county scene after 12 years in the Mourne county squad.

The GAA has confirmed that Croke Park will host the Interprovincial football final for the first time since 1991 next month.

Croke Park will host the Interprovincial football final this autumn for the first time since 1991, after the Competitions Control Committee of the GAA decided to fix this year's finals of the Interpro hurling and football competitions for GAA headquarters.

Long-serving Ulster football manager Brian McEniff is hoping luck will be on his side tomorrow when county championship finals take place in Derry, Down and Tyrone.

Fifty years after winning his first All-Ireland football medal, Kerry selector, and font of wisdom, Johnny Culloty, is preparing for another visit to Croke Park — reflecting on changes in the game he loves. Colm O’Connor meets him.

WHATEVER has happened to the earthquaking Tipperary/Clare rivalry of the last ten years? Time was, and not too long ago, that when these two bitter Munster rivals met, the ground shook and jam-packed stadiums rocked to the sound of ash crashing on ash, bone crunching bone. Even the after-shocks were enough to keep people energised for months.

IN a last-ditch attempt to get the ailing Railway Cup hurling and football competitions back on track, former Munster Council chairman and current trustee of the GAA, Noel Walsh of Clare, has revolutionary proposals to put to the next meeting of Central Council tomorrow week.