While Kilkenny are regarded as one of the "big three" of hurling, with Cork and Tipperary completing the trio, Clare are ranked joined seventh in the all-time roll of honour and have enjoyed sporadic periods of success at various stages throughout the history of the championship.

The coverage that the Irish Press afforded to the three-game saga between Cork and Kilkenny the previous year is credited with turning hurling into a mass spectator sport and, as a partial result of this, a then record crowd of 34,372 packed Croke Park for the 1932 decider.

The final result hinged on an incident two minutes from the end when Clare's goal-scorer Tull Considine was, according to himself, pushed in the back when shooting for a third goal from little more than ten metres.

[citation needed] After an absence of sixty-five years, Clare and Kilkenny renewed their rivalry on 10 August 1997 in the All-Ireland semi-final.

Ger Loughnane's Clare were at their peak during this time while Kilkenny were going through a period of transition and had worked their way through the new "back door" system.

Carey was brought into the game much more after this goal, however, after being switched to mark Frank Lohan the Kilkenny forward's threat was nullified.

Clare became the first team to face a first-round provincial defeat and maneuver their way through the expanded qualifiers to claim an All-Ireland final berth.

An early John Hoyne goal sustained their All-Ireland hopes together with superb defensive play and inspired free-taking from Henry Shefflin.

[3] The replay six days later saw Kilkenny explode out of the blocks and go 1–3 to no score ahead after a quarter of an hour courtesy of Eddie Brennan.

Clare got off to an awful start as Henry Shefflin had goaled from close range and won two frees from Brian Lohan, which he converted himself inside the first five minutes.