SPECTATORS ATTENDING the first day of the championships were caught up in 10-mile tailbacks approaching the event yesterday.
"The traffic was brutal. I came down from Athlone and it took me the guts of five hours to get here," said James Costelloe from Clonown, Co Westmeath.
"I hit traffic about five miles north of Kilkenny and spent the next three hours crawling 10 miles to the event," he said.
Motorists began to arrive on site from 6.30am and long queues had formed on most routes by 9am.
Gardaí said they "will be reviewing" their traffic plan involving the Garda helicopter, to deal with an expected 40,000 vehicles each day.
Supt Pat Ward, regional traffic superintendent for the southeast said, "problems were caused by huge volumes of traffic approaching from Dublin and the midlands".
"The routes that caused us the biggest problem are those from Dublin on the N9 and N10 and coming down from midlands and west on the N77," said Supt Ward.
He asked those travelling to the event today and tomorrow from Carlow to divert at Paulstown and not to go into Kilkenny city. There were also long delays on the N76 south of the event outside Callan.