2005-06-20
SPORT | HURLING
According to Lonely Planet Hurling is "...a mad kind of aerial hockey invented to make the English feel embarrassed about tiggy-touchwood soccer. If you haven't had the twisted pleasure of seeing this example of man's inhumanity to man, head to the Emerald Isle - but keep your head down." | The game moves too fast for the novice to understand anything but the most basic rules, but you can start by imagining an egg-and-spoon race with a pack of enormous angry stick-wielding roosters charging the leader | The Gaelic Athletic Association says of hurling that it is the oldest of Irish sports and dates from pre-Christian times | Standardised rules never existed until the GAA was formed in 1884 | It is the third most popular sport in Ireland (soccer is 2nd) and is played by approximately 100,000 Irish people.|
Soccer/Football and Rugby aredifferent from Hurling | Hurling is similar to lacrosse or hockey. It's played on a large pitch with a curved wooden stick (or "hurley") and a small ball (or "sliothar") | It's one of the fastest games afield, and it's not for the faint of heart | Bodies bang, the ball is as hard as a baseball, and the sticks are made of solid ash |
Aggressive, physical and potentially violent, hurling
raised passions so high that, at times and in some locations, hurling was banned |
It has some popularity in the USA in Wisconsin, where the Milwaukee Hurling Club has successfully assembled a league of 10 teams |
What got me started on all this was that Bruce found a complete set of Wills Cigarette trading cards from the 1920s devoted exclusively to hurling stars of the day | And, in case you are wondering, yes, I know that the pix to the right is not of huring but of football ["soccer' for you Yanks] It's there to give an idea of the trading cards that Bruce found | A complete set, incidentally |
According to Lonely Planet Hurling is "...a mad kind of aerial hockey invented to make the English feel embarrassed about tiggy-touchwood soccer. If you haven't had the twisted pleasure of seeing this example of man's inhumanity to man, head to the Emerald Isle - but keep your head down." | The game moves too fast for the novice to understand anything but the most basic rules, but you can start by imagining an egg-and-spoon race with a pack of enormous angry stick-wielding roosters charging the leader | The Gaelic Athletic Association says of hurling that it is the oldest of Irish sports and dates from pre-Christian times | Standardised rules never existed until the GAA was formed in 1884 | It is the third most popular sport in Ireland (soccer is 2nd) and is played by approximately 100,000 Irish people.|Soccer/Football and Rugby aredifferent from Hurling | Hurling is similar to lacrosse or hockey. It's played on a large pitch with a curved wooden stick (or "hurley") and a small ball (or "sliothar") | It's one of the fastest games afield, and it's not for the faint of heart | Bodies bang, the ball is as hard as a baseball, and the sticks are made of solid ash |
Aggressive, physical and potentially violent, hurling
raised passions so high that, at times and in some locations, hurling was banned |It has some popularity in the USA in Wisconsin, where the Milwaukee Hurling Club has successfully assembled a league of 10 teams |
What got me started on all this was that Bruce found a complete set of Wills Cigarette trading cards from the 1920s devoted exclusively to hurling stars of the day | And, in case you are wondering, yes, I know that the pix to the right is not of huring but of football ["soccer' for you Yanks] It's there to give an idea of the trading cards that Bruce found | A complete set, incidentally |
OTHER HURLING SITES: Lonely Planet's Hurling Details, University of Dublin Department of Sport [look for "Clubs" and "Hurling"], and Gaelic Games|
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