Just a clue for all who've enquired....while there is a version of hurling that involves consuming mass quantities of alcohol and then seeing how much square feet you can cover in your own vomit, THAT is not the type of hurling I'm referring to. :)
We attended the Leinster Hurling Finals Sunday afternoon at Croke Park and it was definitely an experience. I learned a bit more about what hurling is and saw some guys in short shorts in the process. (Sorry Dad)
There are up to 15 players on a team and the positions are similar to those of soccer with forward, mid-field, and defensive positions. Each team has a goalie defending a net, but the are also football-type (American) goal posts above the net where a member can also score.
Every team member has an Ash or hurleys which basically looks like a miniature hockey stick with a really fat wedge. Actually if anyone has seen those Fischer-Price plastic putters for kids, they kind of look like that, only made of Ash.
The ball, or sliotar, is dropped in the middle of the field and the objective is to get it to your opponent's goal and either get it in the net, worth three points, or between the goal posts for one point.
It is a contact sport and as you can imagine, there's a bit of whacking going on, both with limbs and Ashes.
There are 30 minute halves with a ten minute break in between. At halftime a bunch of wee hurlers (think peewee hockey) came onto the field to play. They were so cute!!! And actually not that bad either. Very different from the halftime shows we see in the States!
Croke Park is pretty cool. It's open air and huge! It's where U2 played when they were here the first weekend we were in Ireland. I guess some of the girls tried to get tickets outside the park and they were upwards of ?300! Much too rich for my blood, even as cool as it would have been to see U2 in concert.
Anyway, back to the game. There were actually two and we arrived in the second half of the first one. They play both minor and major 'league' together, which is a bit different. The minor's of Dublin and Wexford were playing when we arrived, and Dublin beat the pants off Wexford. A huge hog pile grew on the field and then they ran around the field with the trophy.
The next match was between the major teams of Kilkenny and Wexford. Since we didn't have any team loyalties, it was a bit hard to know who to root for, but we ended up rooting for Kilkenny. Good choice that, since they won! It was a pretty close match too, with Kilkenny trailing in the beginning, but they were the underdog hero of the day.
I can really see how people get so involved in the sport. It's also kind of nice to see that an ancient game like hurling is still active today. Hurling is considering Ireland's oldest game with the first written records showing that it arrived on the island as early as the 5th century, but some scholars believe that it arrived with a band of nomadic Celts around 600 BCE. The ball used to be made of twine wrapped around itself. I saw an example of an old ball and Ash when I was at the National Museum at Collins Barracks. Pretty cool.
That's all for now folks!