The Gaelic or Irish games are Gaelic football and hurling. These games are exiting, but no one really knows about them outside of the country. Today I am going to tell you a little bit about these games’ history and how they are played.
Number one: Gaelic football. In 1884 the sport of Gaelic football was formalized by the GAA (the Gaelic Athletic Association) who sought to preserve Irish sports and exclude other imports (mostly English). This sport is also one of the only strictly amateur sports out there (meaning the coaches, players, etc. are prohibited from receiving any form of payment). The way you play this game is kind of a mix between soccer and rugby. There is a goal shaped like a H with the bottom half netted and the top half empty. If you get the ball through the top it is one point and if you get the ball into the net, you get three points. The ball you play with is spherical, about the size of a soccer ball, and you can carry it or kick it. If you choose to carry it, you may run for four steps, but then you have to do something with it (like bounce it or kick it back to yourself). When we were In Dublin we stayed at a place close to the Gaelic football stadium, and it was the semifinals between Dublin and Mayo. There were 80,000 people flooding out of the stadium and we were in awe when we walked to do laundry down the street. I compared this sport to rugby because it is very rough and you can easily get injured.For a better explanation, here is a short video that will make all this clearer:
Sport number two: hurling (no, it’s not a competition of who can throw up the most). This Irish sport is also a sport run by the GAA and formalized in 1884 along with Gaelic football. Hurling is older than the recorded history of Ireland and has been a favorite pastime for thousands of years! This game is like Gaelic football but instead of playing with a soccer-like ball, they use a small hard ball that looks like a grey tennis ball. The player hits the ball with a stick called a hurley. The stick is kind of like a hockey stick, but shorter and wider at the end, so you can hit the ball easier. The goal and scoring is the same as in Gaelic football with one point for the top half of the H-goal and three points for the bottom half. When we were in Ireland, the hurling championship was going on between the Waterford and Galway teams (both towns we went to). In Waterford, there were tons of blue and white flags everywhere. In Doolin, we had an interesting conversation with a man named Greg who was a sheepdog trainer, and he told us a little about sports in Ireland. He said that if you were in one town, you played hurling and if you were in another you played Gaelic football. That’s just how it is. They don’t play baseball, basketball, American football, or even soccer! In Galway (after Doolin and Waterford), we learned that Waterford had been defeated and the championship was won by Galway. It was madness on the night they came home from Dublin, opening tons of shops selling Galway attire and other trinkets. It was fun nonetheless. Again, here is a link to a video that will better explain the game of hurling and until next time, Mick.
I didn’t even know these sports existed before we traveled to Ireland. This makes me wonder if there are a bunch of other sports I’m going to see in other countries as I explore the world.