Cian O’Neill appointed as new head coach of Cork hurlers

Cian O’Neill has joined the Cork hurling management set-up as head coach for the coming season. O’Neill, who stepped down as coach to the Kerry footballers after last month’s All-Ireland final, is based in Cork and was previously coach to the Cork footballers.

Having started with the Limerick footballers under Mickey Ned O’Sullivan in 2006, O’Neill has 21 seasons of unbroken involvement with intercounty teams, but this will be his first involvement with an intercounty hurling team since he finished with Tipperary in 2011.

O’Neill was the strength and conditioning coach when Tipperary won the 2010 All-Ireland and when Liam Sheedy and the rest of his management team stepped down at the end of that season, O’Neill stayed on for another year at the request of the players.

Before that, he had been involved with the University of Limerick (UL) Fitzgibbon Cup team for four years and in the course of his career he also spent a season with Toomevara in Tipperary and, significantly, Newtownshandrum – home club of the Cork manager Ben O’Connor.

During his time with Newtownshandrum they won the 2009 Munster championship before losing the All-Ireland semi-final to Ballyhale Shamrocks.

In other changes to the Cork set-up, Ronan Curran has stepped away as a selector and Gerry Hussey will not be returning as performance coach.

“I suppose with any senior intercounty season, plenty of challenges were encountered during the year,” Curran said to Echolive.ie. “This year was no different and the hardest part for me was the alignment of thoughts to overcome these challenges.

“Everyone on the management team wants the same thing but there are so many different ways of getting there. I want the best for Cork, so I thought it was in the best interest of Cork if I stepped away from the set-up.”

Over the last 20 years it is has not been unusual for coaches with a background in football to play a big role with intercounty hurling teams. Paul Kinnerk, a former intercounty footballer, has been Limerick’s coach for each of their six All-Irelands under John Kiely, and Michael Dempsey, a former Laois footballer and coach, spent 15 years as a hugely influential part of Brian Cody’s management team in Kilkenny.

[ Oldest All-Ireland winning hurler Jimmy Lynam dies aged 100 in his native CorkOpens in new window ]

For most of his career as an intercounty coach, O’Neill has been involved with All-Ireland contenders. During his four years as manager of his native Kildare and his two years as Cork football coach during the pandemic, both of those teams were off the pace, but he has been involved in nine All-Ireland finals, four of them on the winning side.

O’Neill’s last two All-Ireland successes were with Kerry, in 2014 with Éamonn Fitzmaurice and in 2025 with Jack O’Connor.

“Kerry have probably won a lot of matches over the years they didn’t deserve to win, but they always found a way,” O’Neill previously said. “I love that term: find a way.”

After another devastating end to the season in Croke Park, that is what the Cork hurlers are searching for now.

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