All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship 1947

The All-Ireland Hurling Championship 1947 ran from May to September of that year. The All-Ireland Hurling Final was won by Kilkenny who beat Cork by 0-14 to 2-7.

Format

The provincial championships in Munster, Leinster and Ulster were all played on a knock-out basis as usual. The three winners of these games advanced directly to the All-Ireland semi-final stages. Galway, who faced no competition in the Connacht Championship, were allowed to advance automatically to the All-Ireland semi-final stages also. The pairings for the All-Ireland semi-finals were Munster V. Ulster and Leinster V. Connacht.

All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

Paths to the final

In the Munster Championship Cork continued their success for a second year in succession. They later had an All-Ireland semi-final win over Antrim and booked their place in a second consecutive All-Ireland final. Kilkenny overcame Dublin to claim their third successive Leinster title. A win over Galway in the subsequent All-Ireland semi-final allowed Kilkenny to advance to the All-Ireland final.

The Galway-Kilkenny All-Ireland semi-final in Birr turned out to be a thrilling and controversial encounter. Galway had lead by a point for the majority of the game and were still leading in injury time. The referee blew his whistle to indicate a free, however, the Galway supporters took it to be the final whistle and poured onto the field to congratulate their heroes. The referee immediately realised what was happening, the pitch was quickly cleared and the game was restarted. Unfortunately for Galway the momentum was lost. Kilkenny were rescued by points from Terry Leahy and Jim Langton, and eventually won by a single point, 2-9 to 1-11.

The final

The 1947 All-Ireland final between Cork and Kilkenny took place on Sunday, September 7. It was their second consecutive meeting in the final, with Cork emerging victorious in 1946. Over 60,000 supporters packed into Croke Park to witness the thirteenth installment of the hurling championship. Kilkenny had learned from the mistakes of the previous year and had decided on their main tactic in advance – to go for points instead of goals. After a first-half struggle ‘the Cats’ lead by 0-7 to 0-5.

In the second-half Mossie O’Riordan and Joe Kelly captured two goals for Cork to put them just one point ahead in the dying minutes of the game. Almost immediately after this Kilkenny were awarded a free about 30 yards away from the Cork goal. Terry Leahy moved the sliothar from where the referee had placed it and the Cork players felt that a free should be awarded to them. Instead, the referee replaced the ball and allowed Leahy to take the free, which he duly put over the bar and equalised the scores. Shortly after that Leahy scored his sixth and final point of the day, making the score Kilkenny 0-14, Cork 2-7.

Results

----footballbox
date = July 28
Semi-Final
team1 = Kilkenny
score = 2-9 – 1-11
team2 = Galway
goals1 =
goals2 =
stadium = Birr----footballbox
date = August 3
Semi-Final
team1 = Cork
score = 7-10 – 0-5
team2 = Antrim
goals1 =
goals2 =
stadium = Croke Park,
Dublin----footballbox
date = September 7
Final
team2 = Cork
score = 0-14 – 2-7
team1 = Kilkenny
goals1 =
goals2 =
stadium = Croke Park,
Dublin
Attendance: 61,510----

ee also