Kilkenny hotels selling out as Dublin footballers come to town

The visit of All-Ireland champions Dublin to Nowlan Park on June 4 is set to be a major money-spinner for Kilkenny city as virtually all its hotels are booked out for the night.

In Dublin’s first championship venture outside of Croke Park since 2006, when they faced Longford in a Leinster quarter-final, Jim Gavin’s side will face the winners of Laois and Carlow at the same stage of the competition on the June bank holiday weekend.

According to TripAdvisor, there are no beds available in the city, the exception being the five-star Lyrath Estate Hotel.

Nowlan Park’s 24,000 capacity is also expected to be challenged by the travelling Dubs and opposing supporters.

The match will also be televised and Sky Sports appear the most likely to cover it.

The “booked out” signs in Kilkenny will further aggrieve Laois who strongly criticised the Leinster Council’s decision to stage the game in Nowlan Park.

Their county board argued the quarter-final against Dublin should have been staged in Portlaoise’s O’Moore Park as Aughrim would not have been capable of hosting it.

Laois chairman Gerry Kavanagh said at the time: “If people were saying we wanted this game because we were greedy, that we were looking for the ground rent, people should know that we offered to forego our ground rent.”