The 1939 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship was the 53rd staging of Ireland's premier Gaelic football knock-out competition. Galway entered the championship as defending champions; however, they were beaten by Mayo in the Connacht final. Kerry were the winners.[1][2][3]
Format
Provincial Championships format changes
Leinster Championship format change
2 Preliminary rounds instead of usual 1. Involved were Longford, Carlow, Westmeath & Wicklow of course the winners qualified for a quarterfinal to meet the stronger teams.
Munster Championship format change
In 1939 Kerry were given a bye to the Munster final, preliminary round was just a lone match between Cork vs Waterford, the winners of the game played in the quarterfinals along with Tipperary, Limerick and Clare, the winners of the game played in a lone Semifinal. The format was previously used in 1933 and was used again in 1941.
All Ireland semifinals system
The All-Ireland Senior Football Championship was run on a provincial basis as usual in every 3rd year in rotation, with the four winners from Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster advancing to the All-Ireland semi-finals. The draw for these games was as follows:
Meath win their second Leinster Title first since 1895.
Kerry are now one behind Dublin with All Ireland titles.
There were a number of first-time championship meetings; There were 2 first time championship meetings in the All Ireland Series at first in the semifinal stage a first meeting between Meath vs Cavan while the second was All Ireland final was the first championship meeting of Kerry vs Meath.
References
^"Football Results 1911 - 1940 | the Official Website of the GAA". Archived from the original on 21 March 2012. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
^"Archived copy". Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 22 July 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^"Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 28 September 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)