The tournament was co-sponsored by the Citywest hotel group and the Department of Health and Children and broadcast by RTÉ.

Third-ranked John Higgins won the competition, defeating the world number seven Peter Ebdon ten frames to three (10–3) in the final.

Higgins produced the tournament's highest break of 140 in the eighth frame of his semi-final match against Stevens to earn €5,000 and a further €100,000 for winning the event.

[2] Steve Davis, the eight-time Irish Masters winner, missed the event for the first time since the 1986 tournament because he fell to 21st in the world rankings and was not given a wild card.

[9][10] World number eight Stephen Lee defeated the reigning Masters champion Paul Hunter 6–4 in their third meeting of the season.

[13] Matthew Stevens won 6–5 over Jimmy White, who made his 20th successive appearance in the Irish Masters.

[14] Ahead 3–1, Stevens fell 4–3 behind White at the mid-session interval after he produced breaks of 106 and 102 and a clearance of 65 to the black ball.

[15] White missed a red to win the match while on a break of 62 and Stevens made a 58 clearance to the pink ball.

Williams reduced the deficit to 5–4 before a miss on the black in the tenth frame allowed Ebdon to win the match.

Lee achieved the match's top break of 90 as he drew the score at 2–2 and forced a re-spotted black after Doherty was out of position on the pink.

At the post-match press conference, O'Sullivan gave monosyllabic answers to questions and stated the result was not the consequence of him fracturing his right hand in a game of association football the week before.

[23] After the mid-session interval, Doherty accumulated a total of 73 points as he was unable to respond to Ebdon who won 6–3.

[24] Doherty said his technique was sub-par, and the match disappointed himself and the spectators: "It was hard to get into it and when you’re not playing well you lose control of the cue ball and make all sort of mistakes.”[24] The other semi-final was contested by Higgins and Stevens.

[25] Higgins said he was fortunate to have qualified for the final because he noted that Stevens would have led 4–0 had he not made an error early in the match: "It was very unlucky but it was up to me to take advantage and I managed to do that, despite letting it slip at 5–3.

[27] Higgins won his fourth title of the season after the Champions Cup, the Scottish Masters and the British Open,[28] and the 24th of his career.