[8][9] The race was organised and formulated by senior members of the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 1904.

[2] It moved to the Ards Circuit on Northern Ireland's public roads in 1928 after an article written by the journalist Wallace McLeod in a Belfast newspaper suggested it occur in the area and the inventor Harry Ferguson helped the RAC to find a suitable track.

[1][11] Donington Park staged the trophy's following two races in 1937 and 1938 after a major accident involving a Riley car during the 1936 edition killed eight onlookers and injured another 25.

[12][13] Following the Second World War, it returned to Northern Ireland and was held on the shorter Dundrod Circuit;[12] a second major crash that killed three competitors in 1955 led the local authorities to bar all future car races on the track.

[18] The winners has been decided by the disqualification of drivers on three occasions, in 2010 to the Nissan pair of Jamie Campbell-Walter and Warren Hughes after the Aston Martin Young Driver AMR pair of Darren Turner and Tomáš Enge lost the victory due to excess wear on their car's plank,[19] in 2016 when Audi's Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer were disqualified for a skid block infringement and promoted Porsche's Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb to first,[20] and in 2018 after two Toyota TS050 Hybrids were disqualified for a failed post-race test and elevated Rebellion Racing drivers Mathias Beche, Thomas Laurent and Gustavo Menezes to the victory.