All-Ireland Junior Football Championship

The All-Ireland Junior Football Championship (JFC) (Irish: Craobh Sóisear Peile na hÉireann) is an inter-county competition in Gaelic football. County teams compete against each other and the winner is declared All-Ireland Junior Champions. Organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), the championship has been contested since 1912 under two different formats, while retaining the same name.

The decision was taken at the 1927 GAA Congress to allow county teams under the remit of the British Provincial Council to compete in the All-Ireland Junior Football Championship. In 1928, Ulster GAA did not organise the Ulster Junior Football Championship, and so for the 1928 All-Ireland Junior Football Championship, the winners of the All-Britain Football Championship, London, were chosen to fill in the final semi-final spot. Despite London losing to Kerry by 4-10 to 2-3 at Highgate, the tournament was restructured to incorporate the All-Britain winners. Between 1929 and 1939 (with the exception of 1930, where London entered a preliminary quarter-final) the Irish junior provincial winners would compete in two semi-finals followed by a 'home' final, with the victorious 'home' finalists meeting the champions of Britain in the All-Ireland JFC final. After the Second World War, this structure resumed, and continued until 1974.

No All-Ireland JFCs were held between 1974 and 1982. While the tournament resumed in 1983, the end of the Ulster JFC and temporary end of the Connacht Junior Football Championship in the late 1980s prompted a reshuffle to the tournament's structure, among wider discontentment with football fixture congestion. In 1992, with the return of Connacht, the All-Ireland was played with simple semi-finals and a final between the Leinster, Munster, Connacht, and Britain junior provincial champions.

In Gaelic games, 'junior' is the term used to describe lower tiers behind senior (and where appropriate, intermediate) competition, rather than referring to age-grade as in some sports. Under-17 competitions in Gaelic games are referred to as 'minor' competitions. While the JFC was contested between the 'junior' county teams in Ireland between 1912 and 2021, the definition of what constituted a 'junior' player differed from county to county. In some counties, the junior team was the second team after the senior team and any players who had not played with the senior team could play with the junior team, while in others, such as Cork and Kerry, players could only be chosen from clubs within the county that played in junior or intermediate grades, with these counties unable to choose players from senior clubs even if they had not played for the senior county team. A county that won the JFC in the pre-2021 format had to pick a new team for the following year - no player could be on a winning team for two successive years.

Since 2022, the competition has involved the All-Britain winners and runners-up, alongside Kilkenny, New York, and USGAA. While New York and London compete in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship/Tailteann Cup structure, the junior teams are made up exclusively of home-grown players. Kilkenny, USGAA, and the other British counties do not field senior teams in the SFC.

With three wins, New York are the most successful team in the post-2021 format. Kerry are the most successful county in the competition's history from the pre-2021 period, having lifted the title on twenty occasions.