Fitting that we come full circle with a little HURLING
Advertisement
Published: February 9th 2012
locker room
this kid was in his own little mecca, that smile didn't leave his face for 2 hoursOK, last blog for now, and I promise I'll keep it short. It was our last day in Ireland and we opted for immersion into what looked throughout our journey like the coolest sport on earth, Hurling. Not the full-contact departure of one's recently-eaten meal, but the version featuring men in short shorts with long sticks.
It just doesn't take much to crack me up.
I am not at all sure how I had never seen or heard of the sport, especially as many club teams are springing up in the US - indeed Boston even has a professional team! Here is a quick peak at what hurling looks like:
"> Hurling It's not as though ESPN is never on in our house. COME ON ESPN, get with the program! You show POKER for cryin' out loud.
It was a long 20' across the street from our hotel to the stadium where the morning entertainment was to take place. We joined a group on a tour of
Croke Park stadium, situated on a site that has been used for Gaelic games since 1884. Over the years the stadium has grown to its current capacity of 82,000+, the fourth-largest stadium in Europe and
the largest not used for soccer.
A product of the GAA (Gaelic Athletics Association), which was created to promote Gaelic sports, (hurling and Gaelic football) it is only recently that other sports were allowed to be played there. The site has a lot of history including being the site of the first
Bloody Sunday. We followed our tour guide up and down and all around the stadium, onto the pitch, into the club boxes, down into the locker rooms. On the tour was an adorable kid that was about 10 who was obviously in heaven. This was quite apparently a huge dream of his, to see where his favorite players did their thing.
The most amazing thing about hurling? It's all amateur - none of the players are paid. They are school teachers and plumbers and doctors and play for the love of the sport and the pride of their counties. And that pride is HUGE. People live and die by their County colors.
It was a fun tour, even for three adults who knew nothing of the sport. Here is a video of
"> walking onto the field. I had a flashback to taking the 200BC field of Italica's colliseum last up in the nose bleed seats
apparently the sun shines so little they use lights (on the white thing) to make the grass grow. year - Tot: 0.249s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 23; qc: 85; dbt: 0.1453s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Chuck
non-member comment
Thanks for the wrap-up
Well, fascinating closure story about hurling. One of my favorite sports to watch (after poker and quilting) is curling and I bet that I would similarly enjoy hurling. But, I still don't completely get it--you go all the way to Ireland to spend days wandering around in the fog and rain in a bitty little car, imagining from pictures in a travel brochure what it is that you are looking at and can't see, and finally ending up with a great story about men in short shorts with big sticks and small balls. Jeeze girl, this is Montezuma County! I know that we have all that and more here, and it's right out there for you, not shrouded in fog and rain. Oh well, I suspect that things like that look a lot better when you are somewhere other than your own back yard or out by the sale barn. Welcome back into our patch!