Does your walking club have what it takes to become an Irish hillwalking team champion? If so, we are delighted to offer you that chance. The All-Ireland Hillwalking Clubs Championship is the ultimate outdoor sports competition contested in the Irish uplands. It is free to enter and is open to all experienced hillwalkers.
Take part
For a chance to become a member of your walking club's Sport Hillwalking team, you must compete in the All-Ireland Hillwalking Championships as an individual (click here for participation instructions).
To represent a walking club in the All-Ireland Hillwalking Clubs Championship, it must be listed on The Ireland Walking Guide website. If your club is not currently listed, you should contact the relevant member of the club's committee to arrange its addition.
Find out when the current or upcoming championships are taking place by visiting our sports competition status page. The Sport Hillwalking season is scheduled to start on 1st March and end on 31st October each year.
Winner selection
The following process is used to decide all club team placings in the All-Ireland Hillwalking Clubs Championship:
- All submitted Championship Entry Forms are checked in early November.
- Each competitor's overall individual score is tallied (i.e. Rounds 1 - 4 points plus bonus points).
- Competitors are sorted into the clubs they are representing.
- Each club represented by 2 or more of its members qualifies as a team in the All-Ireland Hillwalking Clubs Championship.
- The 5 highest individual scores from each club are added together to become that club's official team score.
- If a club team has 2 - 4 members, each of the 1 - 3 empty slots equates to an individual score of zero.
- Clubs are placed in order according to their overall team score, from the highest-scoring club to the lowest.
- The highest-scoring club team is the Champion.
- We aim to announce a full set of results across all categories in mid-November.
Previous results
- The 2022 All-Ireland Hillwalking Clubs Championship is scheduled to start on 1st March.
- Click here for participation instructions.
- Results will be announced in November 2022.
2021
| Placing | Team | Score | Award |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | No clubs were sufficiently represented in 2021 to qualify as teams | - | - |
2020
| Placing | Team | Score | Award |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | No clubs were sufficiently represented in 2020 to qualify as teams | - | - |
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Championship categories
The All-Ireland Hillwalking Clubs Championship
Please note that there is an annual three-day challenge hillwalking festival in east Munster through which the organiser offers his own informal version of an "All-Ireland Hillwalking Club Champions" title. It was purely by chance that we became aware of this other title in 2021 which isn't surprising as it doesn't appear to have been publicised beyond the festival's attendees. The title has been presented each year since 2015 to the walking club whose members collectively attend most days of the walking festival.
In post-event reports published on the festival's official website each year between 2015 and 2020, the title has consistently been referred to as the "[All-Ireland] Club Challenge". Having looked back through the festival's social media posts, the title was first referred to in August 2018 as the "All-Ireland Challenge Hillwalking Club Champions". Since 2019, the festival organiser appears to have dropped the word 'Challenge' from the title when referring to it on social media.
The geographical spread of walks on the festival's programme is limited to just three mountain ranges within the three eastern counties in the province of Munster. There is very little evidence of clubs from outside Munster being represented at the festival. The competition's attendance-based scoring system strongly favours local walking clubs and the organiser can easily identify who the winning club will be when the festival's registration window closes, months before the participants set foot on the hill. It is highly unlikely that a club from the northern half of Ireland could send the required numbers to win. In addition, the festival has limited spaces available and these appear to be snapped up very quickly by past participants. This further reduces the chances for clubs who have not taken part before.
Based on the limited geographical scope of the festival's walks programme and participation catchment, we see little justification for giving formal recognition to the All-Ireland Hillwalking Club Champions title associated with the festival. We would, however, see enough justification to give it formal recognition if the title were renamed as either the "Club Challenge" (within the context of the festival itself) or the "East Munster Hillwalking Champions" (in its widest possible context). The latter title works as a possible template for other walking festivals in Ireland to introduce their own local / regional Sport Hillwalking competitions.
The annual 8-month-long "All-Ireland Hillwalking Clubs Championship" managed through the High Point Ireland project is a true All-Ireland Sport Hillwalking competition spread across all 32 counties and 125 upland areas in Ireland (including each of the 31 mountain ranges). All of Ireland's 209 mountain summits and 187 major geographical High Point locations are in play, each of which can be counted up to 4 times during the season. Plus, our competitors can gain valuable bonus points if they complete any of our 25 mountain challenges and 8 High Point challenges (all of which are entirely optional). Due to the fact that our competition is not a mass start event, we are not required to limit the number of participants, thereby giving ALL walking clubs in Ireland a fair and equal chance.
In addition, the size of each team in our official All-Ireland Hillwalking Clubs Championship is limited to a maximum of 5 people, so the final placings won't be based on attendance numbers. Again, this gives EVERY walking club in Ireland a fair and equal chance.
Based on our official Championship's wider geographical scope, 8-month duration, greater requirement for all-round hillwalking competency, we see no reason to ever rename our "All-Ireland Hillwalking Clubs Championship" to anything else. In addition, our Clubs Championship is part of the broader All-Ireland Hillwalking Championships which also includes the following three competitions:
- All-Ireland Hillwalking Individuals Championship
- All-Ireland Hillwalking Counties Championship
- All-Ireland Hillwalking Provinces Championship
Please note that we are not attempting to discredit the challenge hillwalking festival or its organiser in any way. In fact we would be more than happy to help promote the festival if requested to by the organiser and on the condition that the festival's club competition is appropriately renamed in order to avoid unnecessary confusion. The sole purpose of this note is to clarify any confusion between two similarly named, but very different, hillwalking club competitions.
