Hurling

Doniegoulding 14:13, 1 January 2007 (UTC):For the Cornish sport, see Cornish Hurling.

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The counties of Ireland, coloured by dominant sport. The blue counties are hurling's heartland, hurling and Gaelic football are equally popular in the green counties, while hurling is a minor sport in the yellow counties.

Hurling (Irish, Iománaíocht) is an outdoor team sport of Celtic origin, administered by the Gaelic Athletic Association, and played with sticks and a ball. The game, played primarily in Ireland, is arguably the world's fastest field team sport in terms of game play (however the ball travels faster in other field games such as hockey). It resembles the games of shinty that is played primarily in Scotland, cammag on the Isle of Man and bandy that was played formerly in England and Wales. When played by women it is known as camogie. One of Ireland's native sports, it shares a number of features with Gaelic football, such as the field and goals, number of players, and much terminology.

Game

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Kilkenny V Wexford in Croke Park

Camán and sliotar (hurling stick and ball)

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A standard hurling helmet, manufactured by Mycro Sports

The objective of this field game is for one of two teams to score more goals and points, during a match, than the other. A team comprises 15 players, or "hurlers."

The stick, which is known as a hurley or camán, is made traditionally from the root of the Ash tree and is generally 70–100 cm (32–36 inches) in length with a flat face opposite its handle called a bas. The ball, which is known as a sliotar, is made of leather and 6.5 cm (2.5 inches) in diameter. The goalkeeper's hurley has a bas twice the size of other players' hurleys to provide some advantage against the fast moving sliotar. A good strike with a stick can propel the ball up to 150 km/h (93 mph) in speed and 100 m (305 ft) in distance.

The sliotar may be struck with the hurley from the ground, or it may be caught in the hand before being struck with the hurley or "hand-passed" (see below). Kicking the sliotar is also permitted, but the ball is difficult to kick much beyond 10 m (11 yd).

Accidental collisions between players and equipment do occur and so a plastic protective helmet with faceguard is recommended (mandatory for players under 21).

Rules

Playing Field

The pitch is of grass and rectangular, stretching 130-150 metres long and 80–90 metres wide. There are H-shaped goalposts at each end with a net on the bottom section. The same pitch is used for Gaelic football; the GAA, which organises both sports, decided this to facilitate dual usage. Lines are marked at 13 m, 20 m and 65 m from each end-line. Shorter pitches and smaller goals are used by under-13s and younger.

A standard hurling pitch

Teams

See also: Gaelic football and Hurling positions

Teams consist of fifteen players and they line out as below:

No. 1 Goalkeeper.

No. 2 Right Corner Back. No. 3 Full Back. No. 4 Left Corner Back.

No. 5 Right Half Back. No. 6 Centre Half Back. No. 7 Left Half Back.

No. 8 Midfield. No. 9 Midfield.

No. 10 Right Half Forward. No.11 Centre Half Forward. No. 12 Left Half Forward.

No. 13 Right Corner Forward. No.14 Full Forward. No. 15 Left Corner Forward.

The panel is made up of 24-30 players and 5 substitutions are allowed per game.

Timekeeping

Senior inter-county matches last 70 minutes (35 minutes a half). All other matches last 60 minutes (30 minutes a half). For age groups of under-13 or lower, games may be shortened to 50 minutes. Timekeeping is at the discretion of the referee who adds on stoppage time at the end of each half.

If a knockout game finishes in a draw, a replay is played. If a replay finishes in a draw, 20 minutes (10 minutes a side) extra time is played. If the game is still tied, another replay is played.

In club competitions replays are increasingly not used due to the fixture backlogs caused. Instead, extra time is played after a draw, and if the game is still level after that it will go to a replay.

In inter-County matches there has been a call for a dedicated time keeper, as referees can often be accused of playing enough extra time for the purpose of a draw. As draws are replayed, it consititutes a huge capital gain for the G.A.A.

Technical Fouls

The following are considered technical fouls ("fouling the ball"):

• Picking the ball directly off the ground
• Throwing the ball
• Going five steps with the ball in the hand. It may be bounced or carried on the hurley though.
• Catching the ball three times in a row without it touching the ground (touching the hurley does not count)
• Putting the ball from one hand to the other
• Handpassing a goal or point
• Throwing the hurley
• Square ball, an often controversial rule: If, at the moment the ball is played towards the goal, there is already an attacking player inside the small rectangle, a free out is awarded.

Scoring

Scoring is achieved by sending the sliotar (ball) between the opposition's goal posts. The posts, which are at each end of the field, are "H" posts as in rugby football but with a net under the crossbar as in soccer. The posts are seven yards (6.37 m) apart and the crossbar is seven feet (2.12 m) above the ground.

If the ball goes over the crossbar, a point is scored and a white flag is raised by an umpire. If the ball goes below the crossbar, a goal, worth three points, is scored, and a green flag is raised by an umpire. The goal is guarded by a goalkeeper. Scores are recorded in the format {goal total} - {point total}. For example, the 1997 All-Ireland final finished: Clare 0-20 Tipperary 2-13. Thus Clare won by "twenty points to two thirteen" (20 to 19). 2-0 would be referred to as "two goals", never "two zero". 0-0 is said "no score".

Tackling

Players may be tackled but not struck by a one handed slash of the stick; exceptions are two handed jabs and strikes. Jersey-pulling, wrestling, pushing and tripping are all forbidden. There are several forms of acceptable tackling, the most popular being:

• the block, where one player attempts to smother an opposing players strike by trapping the ball between his hurley and the opponent's swinging hurley;
• the hook, where a player approaches another player from a rear angle and attempts to catch the opponent's hurley with his own at the top of the swing; and
• the side pull, where two players running together for the sliotar will collide at the shoulders and swing together to win the tackle.

Restarting play

• The match begins with the referee throwing the sliotar in between the four midfielders on the halfway line.
• After an attacker has scored or put the ball wide of the goals, the goalkeeper may take a puckout from the hand at the edge of the small square. All players must be beyond the 20 m line.
• After a defender has put the ball wide of the goals, an attacker may take a "65" from the 65 m line level with where the ball went wide. It must be taken by lifting and striking.
• After a player has put the ball over the sideline, the other team may take a sideline puck at the point where the ball left the pitch. It must be taken from the ground.
• After a player has committed a foul, the other team may take a free at the point where the foul was committed. It must be taken by lifting and striking.
• After a defender has committed a foul inside the large rectangle, the other team may take a penalty from the ground from the centre of the 20 m line. Only the goalkeeper and two defenders may guard the goals. It must be taken by lifting and striking.
• If many players are struggling for the ball and it is not clear who was fouled first, the referee may choose to throw the ball in between two opposing players.

Officials

A hurling match is watched over by 8 officials:

• The referee
• Two linesmen
• Sideline Official/Standby Linesman (inter-county games only)
• Four umpires (two at each end)

The referee is responsible for starting and stopping play, recording the score, awarding frees and booking and sending off players.
Linesmen are responsible for indicating the direction of line balls to the referee.
The fourth official is responsible for overseeing substitutions, and also indicating the amount of stoppage time (signalled to him by the referee) and the players substituted using an electronic board.
The umpires are responsible for judging the scoring. They indicate to the referee whether a shot was: wide (spread both arms), a 65 m puck (raise one arm), a point (wave white flag), or a goal (wave green flag).
All officials are also supposed to indicate to the referee anything he may have missed, although this is a rare occurrence. The referee can over-rule any decision by a linesman or umpire.

Positions

Further information: Gaelic football and Hurling positions

History

Legendary Origins

Fragments of law predating the Brehon Laws refer to hurling and may have been written before AD 400.

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

Meallbreatha describes punishments for injuring a player in several games, most of which resemble hurling.

The Seanchás Mór commentaries on the Brehon Law state that the son of a rí (local king) could have his hurley hooped in bronze, while others could only use copper. It was illegal to confiscate a hurley.

13th Century

Statute of Kilkenny forbids hurling due to excessive violence, stating further that the English settlers of the Pale would be better served to practice archery and fencing in order to repel the attacks of the Gaelic Clans.

15th century

A 15th century grave slab survives in Inishowen, County Donegal dedicated to the memory of a Scottish gallowglass warrior named Manas Mac Mhoiresdean of Iona. The slab displays carvings of a claymore, a hurley (stick), and a sliotar.

16th century

1527: Statute recorded in Galway City: "At no time to use ne occupy ye hurling of ye litill balle with the hookie sticks or staves, nor use no hand balle to play without the walls, but only the great foot balle."

1587: Lord Chancellor William Gerrarde complains that English settlers of the Munster Plantation are speaking Irish and playing hurling.

18th century

The Eighteenth Century is frequently referred to as "The Golden Age of Hurling." Members of the Anglo-Irish landowning gentry often kept teams of players on their estates and challenged each other's teams to matches for the amusement of their tenants. Tales of colorful hurling matches from this era continue to be collected from modern Irish storytellers and newspapers of the era.

19th century

The GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) is formed in 1884 in Thurles, County Tipperary under the patronage of Thomas Croke, Archbishop of Cashel and Charles Parnell.

20th century

The 20th century saw greater organisation in Hurling and Gaelic Football. The all-Ireland Hurling championship came into existence along with the provincial championships. Cork, Kilkenny and Tipperary dominated hurling in the 20th century with each of these counties winning more than 20 All-Ireland titles each. Wexford, Waterford, Clare, Limerick, Offaly, Dublin, and Galway were also strong hurling counties during the 20th century.

21st century

As hurling entered the new millennium, it remains Ireland's second most popular sport. An extended qualifier system resulted in a longer All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, but Cork and Kilkenny have come to dominate the championship (they have won six of the seven All-Irelands so far played) and some argue that the All-Ireland has become less competitive. Pay-for-play remains controversial and the Gaelic Players Association continues to grow in strength. The inauguration of the Christy Ring Cup and Nicky Rackard Cup gave new championships and an opportunity to play in Croke Park to the weaker county teams.

National and international

Although many hurling clubs exist worldwide, only Ireland has a national team. It and the Scotland shinty team have played for many years with modified match rules (as with International Rules Football). The match is the only such international competition. However, competition at club level is growing in Europe with teams in several countries. In June 2006, the first ever European County Hurling team played Donegal Senior Panelists (from Setanta Hurling Club, Killygordon) in Brussels with plans to compete in the 2007 Nicky Rackard Cup. Brussels has had a hurling team, Craobh Rua, for over 3 years and has recently formed a camogie team. Craobh Rua competes - and in 2006 jointly won, the European Hurling Cup.

North America

One of the earliest references to the game of hurling on the North American continent dates from St. John's, Newfoundland in the 1780s. In a colony where many of the people were immigrants from County Waterford and County Kilkenny, games of hurling were common. The Catholic Bishop of St. John's, Rev. James O'Donel, complains in his letters to the Governor that faction fights would frequently break out among the audiences at games of hurling. Also, in New York City, newspaper reports from 1782 describe a Saint Patrick's Day game played in a open space behind the Jewish cemetery, remnants of which lie at 55 St. James Place in Chinatown, New York. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the players were most likely British officers from the New York garrison. After the end of the American Revolution, references to hurling cease in American newspapers until the aftermath of the Potato Famine.

Newspaper reports from the 1850s refer to occasional matches played in San Francisco, Hoboken, and New York City. The first game of hurling played under GAA rules outside of Ireland was played on Boston Common in June 1886. In 1888, an American tour by fifty Gaelic athletes from Ireland created enough interest among Irish Americans to lay the groundwork for the North American GAA. By the end of 1889, almost a dozen GAA clubs existed in America, many of them in and around New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Later, clubs were formed in Boston, Cleveland, and many other centers of Irish America. American teams competed in the short lived revival of the Tailteann Games in 1928 and 1932

In 1910, twenty-two hurlers, composed of an equal number from Chicago and New York, conducted a tour of Ireland, where they played against the County teams from Kilkenny, Tipperary, Limerick, Dublin, and Wexford.

Traditionally a game played by Irish immigrants and discarded by their children, many American hurling teams took to raising money to import players directly from Ireland. In recent years, this has changed considerably with the advent of the Internet. Outside of the traditional North American GAA cities of New York, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco, clubs are springing up in places like West Lafayette, Indiana at Purdue University, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Denver, Colorado, Seattle, Portland, Oregon and Minneapolis-Saint Paul. These clubs are different from older clubs in that they consist of predominantly American-born players who bring a new dimension to the game and actively seek to promote it as a mainstream sport.

Argentina

Irish immigrants began arriving in Argentina in the 19th century, largely as gauchos and ranchers on the Pampas of Buenos Aires Province. A frequent joke among their descendants is that in Argentina the situation in Ireland was reversed. THe Irish got the good land and the English got the view.

The earliest reference to hurling in Argentina dates from the late 1880s in the ranching town of Mercedes, Buenos Aires, a major center of the Irish-Argentine community. However, the game was actively promoted until 1900 when it came to the attention of author and newpaperman William Bulfin. Under Bulfin's patronage, the Argentine Hurling Club was formed on July 15, 1900. On August 17, 1900, Bulfin printed the rules and a diagram of a hurling pitch in The Southern Cross, the official newspaper of the Argentina's Irish community. Enthusiasum spread rapidly and teams were quickly established in both the neighborhoods of Buenos Aires and the surrounding farming communities. The Passionist and Pallotine Orders took a major role in promoting the game.

Games of hurling were played every weekend until 1914 and received frequent coverage even from Argentina's Spanish language newspapers like La Nacion. After the outbreak of World War I, however, it became very almost impossible to obtain hurleys from Ireland. An attempt was made to use native Argentine mountain ash, but it proved too heavy and lacking in pliability. Although the game was revived after the end of the war, the golden age of Argentine hurling had passed. World War II finally brought the era to its close.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, immigration from Ireland slowed to a trickle. In addition, native born Irish-Argentines assimilated with a veangence, Hispanicising their names and frequently marrying outside the community, something unheard of in the past. Although the game continued to be occasionally played into the 1960s, it would never regain its former popularity. The last time that hurling was played in Argentina was in 1980, when the Aer Lingus Hurling Club conducted a three week tour of the country and played matches at several locations, including the Christian Brothers school at Boulogne, Buenos Aires. Although the Argentine Hurling Club still exists, it has switched to playing field hockey, rugby, and soccer.

Australia and New Zealand

The earliest reference to hurling in Australia is related in the book "Sketches of Garryowen." On July 12, 1844 a match took place at Batman's Hill in Melbourne as a counterpoint to a march by the Orange Order. Reportedly, the hurling match attracted a crowd of five hundred Irish immigrants, while the Orange march shivered out of existence.

In 1885, a game between two Sydney based teams took place before a crowd of over ten thousand spectators. Reportedly, the contest was greatly enjoyed despite the fact that one newspaper dubbed the game "Two Degrees Safer Than War."

South Africa

Soldiers who served in the Irish Brigade during the Anglo-Boer War are believed to have played the game on the veldt. Immigrants from County Wicklow who had arrived to work in the explosives factory in Umbogintintwini formed a team c. 1915-1916. A major burst of immigration in the 1920s led to the foundation of the Transvaal Hurling Association in Johannesburg in 1928. Games were traditionally played in a pitch on the site of the modern day Johannesburg Central Railway Station every Easter Sunday after Mass.

In 1932, a South African hurling team sailed to Ireland to compete in the Tailteann Games, where they carried a banner donated by a convent of Irish nuns in Cape Town. On their arrival, they were personally received by Ireland's President, Eamonn De Valera.

South African hurling continued to prosper until the outbreak of World War II, which caused immigration from Ireland to cease and made it impossible to import equipment. Games of hurling and Gaelic Football were occasionally sponsored by the Christian Brothers schools in Boksburg and Pretoria well into the 1950s. Both games have all but ceased to be played.

Quotes

"On Christmas Day and during the Christmas season we used to have hurley matches, and the whole village used to be mixed up in the game. Two men would be chosen, one from each side, for captains. Each of them used to call up man by man in turns until all who were on the strand were distributed in the two sides. We had hurleys and a ball. The game was played on the white strand without shoes or stockings,and we went in up to our necks whenever the ball went into the sea. Throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas time there wasn't a man able to drive his cow to the hill for the stiffness of his back and his bones; a pair or so would have a bruised foot, and another would be limping on one leg for a month." --Tomás Ó Criomhthain reminiscing about his youth on Great Blasket Island in the years before the regularisation of hurling rules. From "The Islandman," by Tomas O'Crohan, pages 133-134.

Major hurling competitions

• All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship
  • Munster Senior Hurling Championship
  • Leinster Senior Hurling Championship
  • Ulster Senior Hurling Championship
  • Connacht Senior Hurling Championship
• National Hurling League
• Christy Ring Cup
• Nicky Rackard Cup
• All-Ireland Senior Club Hurling Championship
  • Leinster Senior Club Hurling Championship
• All-Ireland Under-21 Hurling Championship
  • Leinster Under-21 Hurling Championship
• All-Ireland Minor Hurling Championship
• Poc Fada
• Féile na nGael

Notable former players

• Christy Ring of Cork
• John Doyle of Tipperary
• Nicky English of Tipperary
• John Keane of Waterford
• Mick Mackey of Limerick
• Nicky Rackard of Wexford
• DJ Carey of Kilkenny

Notable present players

• Davy Fitzgerald of Clare
• Brian Corcoran of Cork
• Seán Óg Ó hAilpín of Cork
• Henry Shefflin of Kilkenny
• Brendan Cummins of Tipperary
• Eoin Kelly of Tipperary
• Ken McGrath of Waterford
• Damien Fitzhenry of Wexford
• Brian Whelehan of Offaly

References

• Seamus J. King, "A History of Hurling," Copyright 1996, New Edition 2005
• Seamus J. King, "The Clash of the Ash in Foreign Fields; Hurling Abroad."

Links

• 'An Fear Rua - The GAA Unplugged!'
• Official website of the Gaelic Athletic Association
• Video introductions to hurling: Part One, Part Two, Part Three.
• Sports.ie Hurling — Hurling News Fixtures and Results
• The Continental Youth Championships
• A Brief History of the Argentine Hurling Club
• Hurling in Australia and New Zealand
• Gaelic Football, Hurling are Irish Passions, National Geographic News
• The First Hurling Match in the United States
• Hurling, Men's Fitness Magazine