A Kerry name is on the cup, but Cork will look to reclaim it

Alone it stood – but now the Munster SFC trophy has a name, completing the provincial set.

When Cork take to the field in Fitzgerald Stadium on Sunday for the provincial senior football final, they will be competing with Kerry to be the first winners of the newly dedicated Corn Pháidí Uí Shé.

The move to apply a name to what had always simply been known as ‘the Munster football cup’ was always likely following the 2024 decision to name the U20 football and minor hurling trophies in honour of Noel Walsh (Clare) and John Doyle (Tipperary) respectively.

That meant that five of the six inter-county trophies in the province had been christened, with the highest-profile change coming in 2022, when Limerick legend Mick Mackey was honoured with the senior hurling canister.

Fittingly, the cup stayed in Limerick hands for the first few years and when Cork captain Robert Downey took possession of it last June, it was handed over in the Mick Mackey Stand following the penalty shootout win over the Shannonsiders.

When the U21 grade was extant, both provincial trophies were known as Corn na Cásca – following the switch to U20, a new cup was presented for the hurling competition. Appropriately, it was named after JJ Kenneally, a Limerick jeweller and businessman who produced many GAA trophies and medals over the years.

In 1946, Trans World Airlines had proffered the TWA Cup for the Munster minor hurling championship and it remained the prize until 2023 – lasting longer than the company itself, which had cased operations in 2001.

It’s not the only instance of a Munster trophy carrying the name of a defunct brand. The second-tier hurling championship – the grade known as intermediate or junior at various times – has not been contested since 2016 and a revival seems unlikely, meaning that the competition has gone the way of Sweet Afton cigarettes, after whom the trophy was named.

The brand had died out in 2011, 60 years after PJ Carroll & Co, had donated the cup to the Munster Council.

While none of six current Munster trophies are named after Cork people, the one for the minor football championship might cause confusion on that front.

It is known as the Tadhg Crowley Cup but it honours a former Munster Council treasurer, who hailed from Kerry, rather than the Cork football great.

Incidentally, the Tadhg Crowley Cup that we’re familiar with on Leeside is unique in that it has been fully repurposed.

The Clonakilty star was initially commemorated with the contesting of a senior football competition, similar to how the Tom Creedon Cup operated for sides outside the top tier, but the streamlining of the fixtures schedule meant that it was squeezed out.

Last won in 2015 by Bishopstown in its original format – which had begun in 1964, though there were years when it was not played – it was given a new lease of life in 2022 when it was decided that it should be given to the team emerging from the divisions and colleges section of the Premier SFC.

For the hurling equivalent, a new trophy was presented by the family of the late Valley Rovers stalwart, Denis O’Riordan.