Brief History of the Irish Professional Championship

The first Irish Professional Championship was held in 1947 and was won by Jackie Rea. Right up until 1982 the championship was conducted on a challenge basis with the champion deciding who his challenger would be. Jackie lost one challenge, to Jack Bates in 1952, but regained the title almost straight away and beat off all subsequent challenges until he came up against Alex Higgins in 1972.

Higgins made four successful defences, two against Dennis Taylor and two against Patsy Fagan before Dennis beat his in 1980. Taylor made one defence against Fagan the following year before, in 1982 the championship became an eight-man knock-out event, sponsored by Smithwicks Brewery. Taylor won, beating Higgins 16-13 in the final but Alex reversed the result the following year. In 1984 the sponsors withdrew and the event was not held but Stongbow stepped in 1985 and there followed three successive victories for Taylor. In the first two, Higgins was runner up but he was suspended in 1987. Higgins did not compete in 1988 either and Jack McLaughlin was the surprise winner beating Taylor 9-4 in the final, the first time that anyone other than Alex or Dennis had held the title for 16 years.

The subsidy of £1,000 per player, which the WPBSA had provided for all such championships, was withdrawn after the 1988/89 season and, in common with the championships of most of the other countries, this event was discontinued. However with sponsorship from Murphy’s, it was revived in 1992 and held in the Republic for the first time, in Cork. The huge intake of new professionals meant that there was the largest ever entry of some 34 players, but no Alex Higgins. Joe Swail took the prize. When the event was repeated in 1993, with Higgins but without Taylor, Ken Doherty came through to beat Stephen Murphy in the final.

There was no event after this for 12 years but it was revived in October 2005 at the Spawell Sports & Leisure Complex in Templelogue when Joe Swail regained the title from defending champion Ken Doherty. Ken managed to reclaim it in 2006 when he beat Michael Judge 9-4 in the final.

Roll Of Honour