The 2019 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship (SHC) 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.
The defending champion was Limerick.
Carlow returned to the Leinster SHC 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 won the competition, defeating Kilkenny in the final.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Relegated to the Christy Ring Cup
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.
Carlow are relegated to the Joe McDonagh Cup for 2020, because the winners of the 2019 Joe McDonagh Cup were from Leinster (Laois).
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).
Laois are promoted to the 2020 Leinster Senior Hurling Championship.
The third-placed teams in the Leinster and Munster championships played 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, faced the third-placed Leinster team, Dublin, in the first preliminary quarter final, while the runners-up, Westmeath, met Cork, the third-placed team from Munster, in the other preliminary quarter final.
The beaten Leinster and Munster finalists played the winners of the two preliminary quarter-finals. If a third-place finisher from a provincial round-robin won their preliminary quarter-final, they would have been kept apart from the team they had already met in the round-robin phase to prevent a repeat fixture. Both games were held at neutral venues.
The Leinster and Munster champions played the winners of the two quarter-finals. The semi-finals took place at Croke Park in the last weekend of July.
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.
RTÃÂ, 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.
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 KilkennyâÂÂs Adrian Mullen was selected as Young Hurler of the Year.
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.