Hurling (Sport)

Hurling is older than the recorded history of Ireland. It is thought to predate Christianity, having come to Ireland with the Celts.[5] It has been a distinct Irish pastime for at least 2000 years.[6] The earliest written references to the sport in Brehon law date from the fifth century.[5] In the book by Seamus King "A History of Hurling" there is a reference from Irish verbal history of hurling as far back as the 1200 B.C.

but why are the goalkeepers the only ones NOT wearing helmets

Not involved in as many clashes? I'd guess

The tale of the Táin Bó Cuailgne (drawing on earlier legends) describes the hero Cúchulainn playing hurling at Emain Macha. Similar tales are told about Fionn Mac Cumhail and the Fianna, his legendary warrior band

BTW LJ if you're not doing much with yourself atm look this stuff up.

I really enjoy hurling. I think the skill level is phenomenal. I love Kilkenny for the fact that they are leagues ahead of everyone else but I couldnt watch more than 25 mins of the match yesterday, they just destroyed Cork. Having grown up on the limerick side of the tipp-limerick border, I automatically have to hate Tipp but I usually cheer them on (Nicky English is a cousin!). Although in the semi, I cant help but shout for Waterford's gnarled, grizzled old vets.

As a mayoman, I don't really have to worry about allegiances later on in the championships

'We're taking this match awful seriously. We're training three
times a week now, and some of the boys are off the beer since Tuesday' -
Offaly hurler quote in the week before a Leinster hurling final vs.
Kilkenny

LOL

Thing is, that's a lol out of the mouth of, say, Dara O'Briain, but from an inter-county hurler I have no reason to believe that it's anything but sincere.

whisper it softly tom, but i never really took after the GAA footy tbh. the english version of the beautiful game won it for me on subtlety grounds.

i played it when i was younger but it can be dreadfully scrappy to watch at times (quarter finals were great this year tho) and i dont know if these new rules are helping things either.

well god help us and bless us sure we all played it.

played hurling up to u-13 level, loved it. always found the football too physical as a participative sport, tbh.

was pathetic at hurling tbh

took up golf, the marking was easier

Just watched both halves of that 2009 final - Tipperary seemed so unlucky! Maybe that was the editing though?

Is there passing in this sport?

yeah, short hand passes (slap the ball to someone, basically) then medium/long range pucks with the hurl.

i kinda wish there was a better/clearer clip- yesterday's performances on both sides were basically impromptu group poetry through the media of ball and physical abuse.

love this shit

both times ive been to ireland ive caught games on tv and they were rad. a bit like a more vicious field hockey with fewer rules

hurling don't mean shit in ulster iirc

This always used to be on when I used to have Setanta RIP and I never watched it :-(

wow that ball is small in relation to the size of the field!

I guess if you ever wondered "what would full contact golf be like" this is your answer

have to say I think tom humphries is one of the most tedious and overrated people in the irish media. an article. begins. like this. like any other article. every week. in a parish. in tom humphries' parish. with a computer. on a keyboard. mighty. passion. astonishing.

like the gaa tho, amazing that dublin are in the semis this year, i can dream of a victory. was there in 1995 when they last won and at tons of games in the early 90s. haven't been to croke in years as my dad worked near the stadium and i had a job from age 14 till i moved to london at 25 manning their car park where they invited customers to park. prob the most lucrative job i'll ever have.

my favourite o'muircheartaigh moment isn't in that email, i heard it myself one time a few years back, i avidly listened to him in the car park job.

it was some random game and a streaker ran on the pitch but naturally he didn't let that stop him commentating.

"there's a streaker on the pitch. there's a streaker on the pitch. he's on the 40 yard line, he moves towards the 50 yard line. he's still going, he's on the 60 yard line. he is evading the stewards. he's on the 70 yard line....eh em eh...the stewards are still trying to catch him........eh...........IN FAIRNESS HE'S MADE A GREAT RUN BY NOW!"

i like the backround mumbling of humphries, and every now and then he writes an astonishing piece.

all ireland final just started
. Get streaming folks. Tipp just scored! Kilkenny heavy favourites tho.

link?

watchin on terrestial tbh and surfin on crappy nokia browser so not in great position to go checkin streams, sry

Use mymp2p.eu for footy streams you might have some luck there? Teams are kilkenny and tipperary

Kilkenny 0-3 Tipperary 1-6

shocking!!

I shan't be going to the u21 final when I'm there next weekend. It's in Thurles, not Croke Park (in a stadium holding 53,500 in a town of just over 7,000 folk!)

kilkenny star man h shefflin off after 13 mins- had no right to even start did his cruciate only 6 weeks ago or somethin crazy

No stream on myp2p but vimeo claimi a link.

Great goal kk!

well done tipp. they were outstanding. the subs they brought on made a huge difference as well. they hit four or five wides in the whole match?!

TBH I have a huge grudge against the GAA, because my schoolboy sporting years were during the 'ban' where, if you played Gaelic Football or Hurling, you weren't allowed play any 'foreign' games - or 'garrison games' as football, rugby, cricket and hockey were even more pejoratively known. Strangely, American Football, Basketball, and Boxing were, fine, so you can see what particular variety of 'foreign' was the target.

Thus, in my school in Galway, it was a punishable offence to play 'soccer' on school grounds: if a priest or brother appeared, whoever was on the ball would hastily pick it up, and pretend we'd been playing gah all along.

Needless to say, all this bred in me lifelong passion for football and a hatred of bogball and stick fighting. I live less than a mile from Croke Park and I've never seen a game of either. On top of that, Michael Ó Muircheartaigh taught me Irish in my final secondary school in Dublin - so even the undoubted pleasures of his commentary are not unmixed.....

unbelievable result!!!! i mean, tipperary just beat the best hurling team... EVER, right??

yeah, sums it up. Radio commentary described them as the best team to ever grace croke park, of either code. Missed second half, but tipp looked good value in the first.

ffffffffffff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcRwbuSoGyc

^ gets it

but why are the goalkeepers the only ones NOT wearing helmets

― visit europe more (acoleuthic), Monday, 9 August 2010 14:26 (1 month ago)

because nobody fucking argues with a hurling gk. see video.

Took the tour of Croke Park yesterday. Quite the stadium indeed - it feels really intimate despite its 82,300 seats, and this was empty so it must be positively claustrophobic when full. The capacity seems unbelievable actually, when it's almost totally open at one end. The views were great.

Anyway, fun tour of the stands, boxes, dressing rooms etc, ending up in the museum which had an interactive bit - some of which even worked, so I got ten minutes thrashing about with the ball-and-stick* in the nets. Proud to report that the speed gun clocked my best effort at a mighty 64 mph.

* (yes I know they have special names, I just can't remember them right now)

I used to play shinty when I was a kid, in Campbeltown, Kintyre. Lots of people watch hurling there, and I dig it, I've just never played. I used to play shinty for the school, though I was rubbish and I only got a game once everyone else had been smashed up. Put me in good stead for hockey later in life, on the east coast though, because we didn't have any pads for the goalie I just got stuck at that position, as all fear of the injury had long since been knocked out of me.

I'd be too scared to play either shinty or hurling these days, but they're good games if your fear is abated by being young, stupid or drunk - preferably all three.

I don't know what my commas are up to in my last post. Sometimes they get away from me.

huh IK i was in dublin last night in temple bar, which tbh isn't a common occurrence. yeah croker's a beaut of a stadium alright, the intensity when full is something else

ps sliotar, hurl = ball stick

dowd maybe a belt of an aul sliotar has taken the comma part of yr brain out of action

Ah, chance spurned there for the fap thing - I was staying in there. Ships in the night etc.

The thing that seems wrong with both the big GAA games is that you can score by hitting over the bar. Half the footage seemed to be of heroic goalies achieving the impossible, and the other half unchallenged long punts rendering their efforts pointless.

goals worth three points tbf, and also tbf to the outfield players, it's usually a case of getting a shot in from any angle before you get brained so swings and roundabouts really

HURLING HAS A GAY GOALIE SO THERE

lol at (sport) in the thread title here

it seemed easier to just put that out there really

Read a good bit about Tipperary and someone, doing this, in a book called Our Man in Hibernia the other day. Now I almost understand what hurling is in a vague sense not involving knowing any of the actual rules.

no, you now know the full of it basically

the rules are the same ones as in patton's speech to the troops

Btw, Laurel, hurling is an excellent sport to watch. I have an Irish friend who likes to recount how, "Soccer is a gentleman's game played by thugs. Rugby is a thug's game played by gentlemen. Hurling is a thug's game played by thugs - with sticks!"

<3 thugs

It's good fun, really. It's tremendously athletic, fraught with danger and passionately supported and while there's more scoring than in soccer, it doesn't look easy at all.

some run from clare this

it's a bit hockey, a bit rugby, some egg and spoon race and a bit of 2000ad's aeroball. i have no real idea what's going on

its full contact golf played by frustrated rugby lads

Who’s playing I can’t watch cos I’m working

the fans are sitting next to each other in the stands, completely mingled together.

Cork - Clare?! LarryDavidugh.gif but as always, fuck the Banner

its an exhibition of hurling

also noticeable was that after 40 minutes of that they all jogged off at half time

Oh fuck, I thought this was on later.

some game

clare leaving gaps but absolutely determined to shoot from anywhere

Referee in the wars.

ive no idea how this is close its been all clare but they have been perhaos too content to take their points

Couldn't really be any closer!

clare have the legs but cork look far more efficient

i think at this stage of a final....you want to be efficient

love to have a leather ball hit flush at about 90mph towards my goal, get a wooden club in front of it to stop the score and hear a bored commentator say "you'd expect to save it"

Well that was somewhat thrilling.

jesus unlucky with that last effort

if cork had lumped it all game they might have been clear

clare had them for legs all game