The Kilkenny Senior Hurling Championship (known for sponsorship reasons as the St Canice's Credit Union Senior Hurling Championship and abbreviated to the Kilkenny SHC) is an annual hurling competition organised by the Kilkenny County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association and contested by the top-ranking senior clubs in the county of Kilkenny in Ireland. It is the most prestigious competition in Kilkenny hurling.
Introduced in 1887 as the Kilkenny Hurling Championship, it was initially a straight knockout tournament open only to senior-ranking club teams. The championship has gone through a number of changes throughout the years, including the use of a round robin, before reverting to a straight knockout format.
In its current format, the Kilkenny Senior Championship begins in September with a first round series of games comprising eight teams, while the four remaining teams receive byes to the quarter-final stage. A team's finishing position in the Kilkenny Senior Hurling League determines at what stage they enter the championship. Four rounds of games are played, culminating with the final match at Nowlan Park in October. The winner of the Kilkenny Senior Championship, as well as being presented with the Tom Walsh Cup, qualifies for the subsequent Leinster Club Championship.
The competition has been won by 26 teams, 19 of which have won it more than once. Tullaroan and Ballyhale Shamrocks are the most successful teams in the tournament's history, having won it 20 times each. Thomastown are the title-holders, defeating O'Loughlin Gaels by 0-18 to 0-07 in the 2024 final.
History
Beginnings
Following the foundation of the Gaelic Athletic Association in 1884, new rules for Gaelic football and hurling were drawn up and published in the United Irishman newspaper. County committees were established over the next few years, with the Kilkenny County Board affiliating on 30 January 1887. The inaugural championship was contested by just four clubs, with Tullaroan winning the title after a defeat of Mooncoin.[1] Since then the championship title has been awarded every year except on a handful of occasions. No championships took place in 1891, 1892 and 1912, while several championships between 1916 and 1922 were either cancelled or unfinished due to the Irish revolutionary period. The 1916 championship began in October 1916, however, because of martial law it wasn't completed until June 1919. It was decreed that the winner of the match would be declared champions for all three years.
Team dominance
The first fifty years of the championship were dominated by Tullaroan based in North Kilkenny and Mooncoin in South Kilkenny, who built up an intense rivalry. Both clubs shared 29 championship titles between 1887 and 1952, however, since the introduction of Parish Rule in 1953, they have won just 3 titles between them.
Other clubs who enjoyed limited periods of dominance during this time include city-based club Confederation, who won three titles between 1893 and 1896, and Dicksboro who won two titles from four final appearances during the 1920s. Carrickshock's dominance saw the club play in ten finals between 1938 and 1948, becoming the first team to win four successive championships from 1940 to 1943. Éire Óg also claimed four titles during this period. After a sixty-year hiatus Bennettsbridge returned to winning ways and claimed ten championship titles between 1952 and 1967. Fenians added their name to the roll of honour in 1970 before claiming four more championships before the end of the decade. In 1978 Ballyhale Shamrocks became the latest first-time champions and ushered in a new era of dominance by winning 10 more championship titles by 1991. As Ballyhale went into decline, Glenmore dominated the nineties by winning five championships between 1987 and 1999. The first decade of the new century saw O'Loughlin Gaels and James Stephens win two titles apiece, while Ballyhale Shamrocks ended the decade with four successive championships before winning four more in 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2019.
Format
The Kilkenny Senior Hurling Championship is a single elimination tournament. Each team is afforded just one defeat before being eliminated from the championship. Pairings for matches are drawn at random, however, there is a certain level of seeding based on league performance.
If a match is drawn there is a replay. If both sides are still level at the end of the replay there is a period of extra time and so on until a winner is found.
The league begins with two groups of six teams. The teams are ranked in the group stage table by points gained, then scoring difference and then their head-to-head record. Following the completion of the league, the top two teams from each group receive byes to separate quarter-finals in the championship. The two third-placed teams plays the sixth-placed teams from the opposite group, and the two fourth-placed teams plays the fifth-placed teams in the first round of the championship.
Knockout Stage
First round: 8 teams contest this round. The 4 winning teams advance directly to the quarter-final stage. The 4 losing teams are eliminated from the championship.
Quarter-finals: The four first round winners and the four teams given a bye contest this round. The four winners from these four games advance to the semi-finals.
Semi-finals: The four quarter-final winners contest this round. The two winners from these two games advance to the final.
Final: The two semi-final winners contest the final. The winning team are declared champions.
Since 1991 the Kilkenny County Championship has been sponsored by the St Canice's Credit Union.
Managers
Managers in the Kilkenny Championship are involved in the day-to-day running of the team, including the training, team selection, and sourcing of players. Their influence varies from club-to-club and is related to the individual club committees. The manager is assisted by a team of two or three selectors and a backroom team consisting of various coaches.
