The 2005 Setanta Cup was the first edition of the Setanta Sports Cup, a club football competition featuring teams from both football associations on the island of Ireland. It was inaugurated as a cross-border competition between clubs from the League of Ireland in the Republic of Ireland and the Irish League in Northern Ireland.

Quick Facts Tournament details, Country ...

2005 Setanta Cup

Tournament details
Country	Northern Ireland Republic of Ireland
Teams	6
Final positions
Champions	Linfield (1st title)
Runner-up	Shelbourne
Tournament statistics
Matches played	13
Goals scored	33 (2.54 per match)
2006 →

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The cup is sponsored by Setanta Sports; the Irish sports television network. The competition was launched with Setanta providing support for prize money (€350,000) and sponsorship (€1.6 million over 4 years).

For this season the cup was simply known as the Setanta Cup before being renamed the Setanta Sports Cup from 2006 onwards.

Glentoran beat Longford Town 2–1 in the first ever game of the competition on 15 March 2005. The first final saw Belfast side Linfield defeat Dublin's Shelbourne 2–0 at Tolka Park in Dublin on 21 May 2005 to collect the winner's prize of €150,000.^[1]

The teams would be split into two groups of 3 teams and play each other twice, once at home and once away. The winners of each group would play in a single game final, to be held in Tolka Park if at least one team from the Republic of Ireland was involved. If the final was played between two teams from Northern Ireland, the final would be held at Windsor Park.

3 goals

• Gary Hamilton (Portadown)

2 goals

1 goal

1 own goal

• Philip Simpson (Glentoran)