Hurling is all About Community
Hurling clubs are all local
There is no national hurling team. Instead, hurling is very community-focused, with teams at all levels being made of local community members. This means there is great support from the community when it comes to game attendance, and young players can aspire to be on their local senior teams one day. It is often thought that hurling played a ritual part in festivals and fairs in Ireland in the past, among other sports and games, and was so common that it did not need to be explained to anyone who was Irish (Ó Cadhla, 60-61). References to hurling appear in multiple Irish legends, including the stories of mythological heroes like Cú Chulainn and Fionn mac Cumhaill, and contests with the supernatural Tuatha Dé Danann (A. O’Sullivan, 33). Traditionally, hurling was often played as a part of Samhain, the ancient Celtic tradition that has been melded into what we now call Halloween. In fact, the Gaelic Athletic Association, which standardized and oversees the sport today, was founded on November 1st to pay tribute to this tradition (Ó Cadhla, 69). Today, hurling is a standardized sport overseen by the Gaelic Athletic Association, or GAA. |
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The GAA and Creating Irish identity
The GAA was founded on November 1, 1884 as a means to promote the playing of native Irish sports. A major goal was to ensure university students could access sports like hurling instead of only traditionally English sports like rugby, cricket, and rowing. This has been referred to as the "Gaelic games revival" (Brady, 28-43). The goal was to make sport more Irish and less British, to create a greater sense of Irish identity, even under the British government. The GAA was able to use the format of the British Amateur Athletic Association that existed at that time in order to "overpower... British authority over Irish sports" (Brady, 31). The 1880s were a significant time in Ireland. A huge decline in population had just taken place during the Famine, killing many and leading to mass migration away from Ireland due to both famine and poverty. Hurling was standardized with the purpose of connecting communities across Ireland, because, though there was evidence of the sport having been played for hundreds or thousands of years, the rules varied by the community. Some argue that, despite the references to hurling in legends and myths, a certain amount of "invention of tradition" was used to establish hurling as a national sport, perhaps as an over-emphasis on the historical links to the sport (Brady, 30). The drive to create a national sport and a national identity may have resulted in the "dissolution of local, regional identities, creating the impression, often rehearsed in Irish historiography, that everyone is on the same team, people, state and Church" (Ó Cadhla, 59). The performance of hurling changed because of this. Local rules of play could no longer apply and teams were formalized. The reasons for playing the game changed. Yet, time and again the ancient history is cited, its existence proven by archeological evidence. Players of hurling feel pride in their local clubs and in their national identity. The GAA has succeeded in creating a national sport with a national identity, something uniquely Irish with links to the ancient and not so ancient past. |
International
Community was still highly important for those who left Ireland during the Famine in the mid-1800s. Those who made their way to North America, settling in the United States and Canada, often stuck together in Irish-immigrant communities. These immigrant groups often had social events to connect with each other, and sometimes these included games of hurling. One example of an organization that used Irish sport as a community-growing activity was the Toronto, Canada-based group known as the Hibernian Benevolent Society, or HBS. Immigrants from Ireland often faced discrimination when attempting to settle in North America. This stemmed from the large influx of one ethnic group, the poverty they often arrived in and often struggled to overcome, and the mostly Catholic religion of Irish immigrants. In Toronto, there was a group that violently opposed the Irish Catholic settlement in the city. They were known as the Orange Order, or Orangemen, and they "fought to defend Canada's destiny as a Protestant and British stronghold by blocking any Irish Catholic advancement in Toronto life" (Dennis and Wamsley, 22). The HBS was established to "provide protection for Irish Catholics against the aggression of Orangemen" (Dennis and Wamsley, 22). The HBS grew rapidly after its foundation. A major aspect of the culture created by the HBS was athletics, which "played an important role in the organization from its inception" (Dennis and Wamsley, 23). Challenges were issued and matches played between Irish Catholic members of the HBS and members of Protestant clubs and societies. For the Irish immigrants in Toronto, the sports of hurling and Gaelic football were as political as they were cultural. The sport is no longer as popular in North America, but it is still played. The context of the sport is very different, however. For players with Irish heritage in North America, it can serve as a connection to a culture their ancestors lost through immigration, while for those in Ireland it serves to connect players to a long, canonically uninterrupted heritage. |
Camogie
Hurling is such an important Irish sport that beginning in 1904, women were able to play a modified version of the game, called camogie. The game is mostly the same, though perhaps less aggressive where tackling is involved. The ball is also slightly smaller and players must wear skirts or skorts. The creation of the sport allows female players to also tap into the connection that comes with playing an ancient game that has been such an integral part of Irish history and culture for hundreds or thousands of years, but that has been a strictly male sport since the foundation of the GAA. Historically speaking, women previously only played the role of spectators, though in some traditions they also made the balls used in hurling matches. These were "sometimes covered with gold and silver paper ... [and] were often made by young women or newlyweds who then presented them as gifts for use during hurling matches" (Ó Cadhla, 73). Today, female players are just as connected to Irish athletic culture as male players. |