Champions, old faces and European dreams - the Irish Premiership returns

The Irish Premiership season is back!

It's been 90 days since the 2024/25 Irish Premiership season came to a close with Cliftonville beating Coleraine in the European play-off final in May.

So, three months on, Northern Ireland's top flight is back and it has been a busy summer for all 12 clubs.

BBC Sport NI looks at some of the major talking points ahead of the 2025/26 season.

The Gibson Cup is sitting back in Windsor Park after two seasons on the Antrim coast with Larne.

David Healy's Linfield romped home to take the title with five games to spare as they extended their record of title wins to 57.

Their dominance on the pitch was even more remarkable considering it was a season that saw speculation surrounding Healy and star player Joel Cooper leaving the club throughout the season.

The manager stayed and signed a contract extension two months ago, while Cooper, last year's NI Football Writers Player of the Year, left for Coleraine.

The Blues' nearest challengers last season were 22 points behind them and the side they dethroned as champions Larne.

A season of transition for the Inver Park side saw a first campaign in Europe but also the departure of Tiernan Lynch as manager in December.

They mustered a strong challenge in the second-half of the season to finish in the automatic European places at the expense of Glentoran.

After picking up the County Antrim Shield in January - their first silverware in five years - Declan Devine's side went on to miss out on BetMcLean Cup, losing to Cliftonville in the final and the Irish Cup after a quarter-final defeat against Bangor.

No European football for them this season, but they did muster four wins over champions Linfield though, showing they are still capable of a big day performance.

Coleraine have found themselves in amongst the title favourites with the bookmakers after some big moves in the transfer market.

New manager Ruaidhri Higgins has brought in eight new signings this summer including the aforementioned Cooper, Stephen Fallon, Will Patching and Kodi Lyons-Foster.

Talking about Coleraine, they are one of two sides with a somewhat new face in the dugouts for this season.

Former Derry City manager Higgins got nestled into his new role at Coleraine ahead of their unsuccessful European play-off campaign in May.

He replaced Dean Shiels at the Showgrounds as new Bannsiders owner Henry Ross made some big changes to the set-up with Oran Kearney leaving his role as sporting director too.

Larne welcome back Nathan Rooney to the hotseat at Inver Park after originally announcing him as manager in November 2024.

The former Bruno's Magpies manager ended up moving into a director of football role for the season and replaced by Gary Haveron due to a technicality with his licencing qualifications.

That issue was resolved in May with Englishman Rooney now enrolled on a Uefa Pro Licence course with Haveron moving back to his former role of assistant.

We said goodbye to Loughgall at the end of last season and this year we welcome back Bangor to the Irish Premiership.

The champions of the second-tier Championship, Lee Feeney's side are back in the top flight for the first time since 2009.

The club have had a remarkable turnaround over the last five years with Feeney at the helm. They were down in the third tier of domestic football when the former Rangers man took over in 2020 and he led them to the Championship three years later.

With the evergreen Michael Halliday still turning out for the side at 46, Bangor won the title by five points, holding off the challenge of Annagh United.

They have opted to bring in some experienced Irish Premiership players such as Gareth Deane and Mark Haughey to boost their bid for survival.

The 2024/25 campaign was a dream season for Rodney McAree's Dungannon Swifts side.

They surprised everyone by surging to a fourth-place finish and followed up their impressive league form by winning the Irish Cup for the first time with a penalty shootout win against Cliftonville.

That landmark success secured European qualification for the Stangmore Park side, along with all the financial rewards that accompany it, although they fell at the second qualifying round against FC Vaduz.

The Swifts have lost striker John McGovern to Shamrock Rovers, who was key to their success with 14 league goals last season and captain Dean Curry, who retired on a high following the Irish Cup win.

McAree, who was named Manager of the Year last season, has managed to keep the rest of his squad together and has even added former Everton midfielder Sean McAllister but can they repeat their success of last year or will they drop off?

After Larne's historic campaign in the Uefa Conference League last season, both them and Linfield are on the hunt for a spot in the league stage of that competition again.

The Inver Park club finished their inaugural campaign on a huge high with a 1-0 win over Belgian side Gent in their final match in December and will face Portugal's CD Santa Clara over two legs in the third round of qualifying.

After coming within a whisker of qualifying for European competition back in 2022, Linfield are also in the mix for a spot this season.

They lost out in Champions League qualifying to League of Ireland champions Shelbourne before coming through the challenge of Zalgiris in the second round of Conference League qualifying.

They will play Faroese side Vikingur Gøta next up, with the winners of that tie moving into the final play-off round.

And the prize on offer is lucrative for both clubs with Larne reportingly earning nearly £3m for their progression in the league stage of last year's competition.