2019 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

The 2019 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship was the 132nd staging of the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, the Gaelic Athletic Association's premier inter-county hurling tournament, since its establishment in 1887. The draw for the 2019 fixtures took place on 11 October 2018. The championship began on 11 May 2019 and concluded on 18 August 2019.

Limerick were the defending champions.

Carlow returned to the Leinster Championship for the first time since 2016, replacing Offaly who were relegated in 2018. Carlow lost all their four games in 2019 and were automatically relegated to the 2020 Joe McDonagh Cup.

Tipperary were the winners, defeating Kilkenny in the final.

Leinster Championship
Participating counties (5): Carlow, Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny, Wexford

Group stage (10 matches): Each team plays each other once. The 1st and 2nd placed teams advance to the Leinster final and the 3rd placed team advances to the all-Ireland preliminary quarter-finals. All other teams are eliminated from the championship and the bottom placed team may face relegation to next years Joe McDonagh Cup.

Final (1 match): The top 2 teams in the group stage contest this game. The Leinster champions advance to the All-Ireland semi-finals and the Leinster runners-up advance to the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

Munster Championship
Participating counties (5): Clare, Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Waterford

Group stage (10 matches): Each team plays each other once. The 1st and 2nd placed teams advance to the Munster final and the 3rd placed team advances to the all-Ireland preliminary quarter-finals. All other teams are eliminated from the championship and the bottom placed team may face relegation to next years Joe McDonagh Cup.

Final (1 match): The top 2 teams in the group stage contest this game. The Munster champions advance to the All-Ireland semi-finals and the Munster runners-up advance to the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

Joe McDonagh Cup
Participating counties (5): Antrim, Kerry, Laois, Offaly, Westmeath

Group stage (10 matches): Each team plays each other once. The 1st and 2nd placed teams advance to the Joe McDonagh Cup final. All other teams are eliminated from the championship and the bottom placed team are relegated to next years Christy Ring Cup.

Final (1 match): The top 2 teams in the group stage contest this game. The Joe McDonagh Cup champions and runners-up advance to the All-Ireland preliminary quarter-finals.

All-Ireland Championship
Preliminary quarter-finals (2 matches): The 3rd placed teams from the Leinster and Munster championships play the Joe McDonagh Cup champions and runners-up. Two teams are eliminated at this stage while the winners advance to the quarter-finals.

Quarter-finals (2 matches): The winners of the preliminary quarter-finals join the Leinster and Munster runners-up to make up the quarter-final pairings. Teams who may have already met in the provincial championships are kept apart in separate quarter-finals. Two teams are eliminated at this stage while the winners advance to the semi-finals.

Semi-finals (2 matches): The winners of the quarter-finals join the Leinster and Munster champions to make up the semi-final pairings. Teams who may have already met in the provincial championships are kept apart in separate semi-finals where possible. Two teams are eliminated at this stage while the winners advance to the final.

Final (1 match): The two winners of the semi-finals contest this game.

From Championship
Relegated to the Christy Ring Cup


 * Meath

General information
Fifteen counties will compete in the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship: five teams in the Leinster Senior Hurling Championship, five teams in the Munster Senior Hurling Championship and five teams in the Joe McDonagh Cup.

Leinster Senior Hurling Championship
Carlow are relegated to the Joe McDonagh Cup for 2020, because the winners of the 2019 Joe McDonagh Cup were from Leinster (Laois).

Munster Senior Hurling Championship
Waterford did not need to play a relegation-playoff to avoid relegation to the Joe McDonagh Cup for 2020, because the winners of the 2019 Joe McDonagh Cup were from Leinster (Laois).

Final
Laois are promoted to the 2020 Leinster Senior Hurling Championship.

All-Ireland preliminary quarter-finals
The third-placed teams in the Leinster and Munster championships play the two teams who competed in the Joe McDonagh Cup Final, with the two Joe McDonagh finalists having home advantage. The Joe McDonagh champions, Laois, face third-placed Leinster team, Dublin, in the first preliminary quarter final, while the runners-up, Westmeath, meet Cork, the third-placed team from Munster, in the other preliminary quarter final.

All-Ireland quarter-finals
The beaten Leinster and Munster finalists play the winners of the two preliminary quarter-finals. If a third-place finisher from a provincial round-robin wins their preliminary quarter-final, they will be kept apart from the team they have already met in the round-robin phase to prevent a repeat fixture. Both games are held at neutral venues.

All-Ireland semi-finals
The Leinster and Munster champions play the winners of the two quarter-finals. The semi-finals take place in Croke Park in the last weekend of July.

Teams and venues
Each team has a nominal home stadium for the round-robin series of the provincial championships.

In the knockout stage, teams from the provincial round-robin series will not have home advantage, if avoidable. The only teams to play knockout games at home are the two Joe McDonagh Cup finalists, who have home advantage in the preliminary quarter-finals. The Munster final was held at a neutral venue which was decided based on the qualifying teams, while the locations of the two quarter-finals were decided based on similar considerations. The Leinster final, and the semi-finals and final of the All-Ireland series are held in the 82,300-capacity Croke Park in Dublin, headquarters of the GAA.

Scoring Events

 * Widest winning margin: 23 points
 * Cork 1-40 – 0-20 Westmeath (preliminary quarter-final)
 * Most goals in a match: 5
 * Kilkenny 2-22 – 3-20 Galway (Leinster SHC)
 * Kilkenny 2-27 – 3-18 Cork (quarter-final)
 * Most points in a match: 60
 * Cork 1-40 – 0-20 Westmeath (preliminary quarter-final)
 * Most goals by one team in a match: 3
 * Carlow 1-14 – 3-22 Kilkenny (Leinster SHC)
 * Clare 0-17 – 3-21 Tipperary (Munster SHC)
 * Kilkenny 2-22 – 3-20 Galway (Leinster SHC)
 * Kilkenny 2-27 – 3-18 Cork (quarter-final)
 * Tipperary 1-28 – 3-20 Wexford (semi-final)
 * Tipperary 3-25 – 0-20 Kilkenny (final)
 * Most goals without winning: 3
 * Kilkenny 2-27 – 3-18 Cork (quarter-final)
 * Tipperary 1-28 – 3-20 Wexford (semi-final)
 * Highest scoring match: 63 points
 * Cork 1-40 – 0-20 Westmeath (preliminary quarter-final)
 * Lowest scoring match: 32 points
 * Galway 0-16 – 0-16 Wexford (Leinster SHC)

Miscellaneous

 * The Leinster Championship meeting between Carlow and Kilkenny was their first championship meeting since 20 June 1993.
 * On 19 May, Patrick Horgan of Cork became only the fifth player ever to record a cumulative total of 400 points in the championship.
 * Galway's Micheál Donoghue became the first manager to secure three victories over Brian Cody's Kilkenny in the championship.
 * Kilkenny suffered their first home championship defeat at Nowlan Park since 1949.
 * The Munster final between Limerick and Tipperary was their first meeting at this stage of the championship since 2001.
 * Wexford won their first Leinster championship since 2004, and reached the All-Ireland semi-finals for the first time since 2007.
 * The All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final was the first ever championship meeting between Cork and Westmeath.
 * Laois reached the All-Ireland quarter-finals for the first time since 1979.
 * Cork scored forty points in the preliminary quarter-final against Westmeath, a record (they won 1-40 to 0-20). The previous record was 35, scored by Waterford against Offaly in 2017.
 * Patrick Horgan scored a hat-trick for Cork against Kilkenny, but ended on the losing side. The last time this happened was Seamus Callanan in 2015, who scored a hat-trick for Tipperary as they lost to Galway.
 * This is the very first time two teams beaten in their respective provincial finals meet at the Final stage.
 * Tipperary become the first team to win two All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championships by qualifying back into the All-Ireland series through the back door system. The first time they achieved this feat was in 2010.

Live televised games
RTÉ, the national broadcaster in Ireland, will provide the majority of the live television coverage of the hurling championship in the third year of a five-year deal running from 2017 until 2021. Sky Sports will also broadcast a number of matches and will have exclusive rights to some games.

Awards
The Sunday Game team of the year was picked on 18 August, which was the night of the final. The panel consisting of Brendan Cummins, Cyril Farrell, Jackie Tyrell, Ursula Jacob, Graeme Mulcahy, Derek McGrath and Enda Rowland picked Noel McGrath as the Sunday game player of the year while Kilkenny’s Adrian Mullen was selected as Young Hurler of the Year.
 * Sunday Game Team of the Year
 * 1. Eoin Murphy (Kilkenny)
 * 2. Sean Finn (Limerick)
 * 3. Ronan Maher (Tipperary)
 * 4. Cathal Barrett (Tipperary)
 * 5. Brendan Maher (Tipperary)
 * 6. Padraig Walsh (Kilkenny)
 * 7. Padraic Maher (Tipperary)
 * 8. Diarmuid O’Keeffe (Wexford)
 * 9. Noel McGrath (Tipperary)
 * 10. Lee Chin (Wexford)
 * 11. TJ Reid (Kilkenny)
 * 12. Colin Fennelly (Kilkenny)
 * 13. Aaron Gillane (Limerick)
 * 14. Seamus Callanan (Tipperary)
 * 15. Patrick Horgan (Cork)

On 1 November, the 2019 PwC All-Stars winners were presented at Dublin's Convention Centre. Séamus Callanan was named as the All Stars Hurler of the Year with Adrian Mullen named the All Stars Young Hurler of the Year.
 * All Star Team of the Year