He played hurling with his local club Newport and with the Tipperary and Galway senior inter-county teams in the 1970s.
He was a substitute goalkeeper on the team in the inaugural year of the competition in 1964, however, by 1965 Shinnors was the first choice net minder.
It looked likely that Shinnors would now become the number one goalkeeper on the team, however, before the start of the 1971 championship he was unceremoniously cut from the panel of players.
He remained between the posts until 1976, however, during those three seasons Tipperary failed to win a single championship game.
Two years later in 1978, however, he was drafted onto the Galway senior panel by his old under-21 teammate Michael ‘Babs’ Keating.
In an exciting game Shinnors made some excellent saves and contributed to Galway’s 2-14 to 1-13 victory over one of the greatest teams of all-time.
This defeat shook Shinnors’s confidence; however, he remained on the panel for the National Hurling League in late 1979 and early 1980.
He assumed that he would be lining out in the championship, however, a few weeks before Galway’s first outing Shinnors receive a letter explaining that he had been dropped from the panel.