The O'Sullivan Cup was the seventh division of the Leinster Leagues, run by the Leinster Chess Union. It was named after Tom O'Sullivan of Malahide Chess Club who was president of the Leinster Chess Union around the time.

Bodley Cup, pic: St. Benildus website.

Starting in the 2014/15 season it ran for three years, ending in the 2016/17 season. Teams of five players from a club played other teams in a round robin format in two sections called A and B, not regionalized. The winners and runners-up of each section then played two rounds of playoff games to determine the overall winner. This means that the winners of Section A played the runners up in Section B, and vice versa, with the winners of these semi-finals facing each other in the finals. At the end of each season the two finalist teams were promoted to the Bodley Cup, division 6. The O'Sullivan Cup has not been held since the BEA Cup (Division 5) and Bodley Cup (Division 6) were regionalised into North and South sections in the 2017/18 season. An attempt to revamp the division as one to encourage junior participation a few years later by Maura Osborne and Alex Goss was unsuccessful due to insufficient entries. This change made room for new teams to enter the leagues in Division 6 rather than Division 7. Players have to be registered with the Irish Chess Union and all matches are rated by the ICU.

Below are the winners of both sections. While a playoff between these teams occurred each season there is no record as yet of the eventual winner except in 2017.

No records are available for the 2015 playoffs, although Blanchardstown came third that year [1].

In 2016 Rathmines and Kilkenny A won the sections, with Malahide and Bray/Greystones as runners up. In the semi-finals Bray/Greystones beat Rathmines and Kilkenny A beat Malahide, but no record of the final exists [2].

In 2016/17 Gonzaga A and Gonzaga B were the section winners, with one Gonzaga team winning the play-off.

John Loughran. Originally written for Wikipedia in 2024.

Please send corrections and updates to John Loughran on skerrieschess.com/contact.