Skip to main content

I LOVE HURLING.

Image
By


I love hurling. The beauty of it. The skill. The magic. The rootedness. The Irishness of it. Even as a little boy on my own  hitting a sliotar off a gable wall. I loved that. Up and back. Up and back. Pull on it. Sliotar up on the bos of the hurl. It’s all in the wrists.  Flick the sliotar up. Pull on it. Catch it coming back. Pull on it again. Or better still catch it on the hurl and blarge it off the wall again without touching it with your hand. It’s all in the stick work. 

Pull on the ground. First touch. Two hands on the hurl.  Pull again. Don’t hesitate. Sliotar  finding the bos of the hurl. Pull on it.  Keep your eye on the ball! Don’t hesitate. Pull first time. Mighty! Pull again. 

Brother Aloysius told us that the hurley should be an extension of our arms.  Keep the hurl with you at all times boys he told us. Practice. Practice. Practice. Hurling is part of us. We have played it for centuries. The fastest field game in the world.  Keep your eye on the ball. Pull on it. The sweet thunk sound of the ash stick hitting the leather sliotar  and the reassuring vibration up your arm when you puck the sliothar the way it deserves. 

 Always keep your eye on the sliotar. Keep your hurl up. Don’t stand off your man.  Mark him. How many times do I have to tell you that? Get in tight to him. Don’t stand back. Use your shoulder. What are you afraid of?  Give him a dunt. Hurl up. Hook him. That’s your ball. Do you not want it? Hurl up! What a mighty block! That’s great hurling wee buck! Now don’t make a mess of it. That’s it. Get rid of it. Drive it up the field. 

Pull on it on the ground. Is there a hole in your hurley? Pull on it first time.  Pull on it!  Pass it. Get rid of it. Does anyone want the ball? Show for it. Don’t leave him on his own. Get tore in lads.  Help him. Clear your lines. Let the sliotar do the running. Good job lads. Well done. 

It’s all in the wrists. Hold your hurl at arms length. Make a figure eight on its side. Again and again and again.  Get the stick work right. Build your skills. The camán isn’t a sledge hammer. It’s a wand. It only needs a wee touch. A flick. It’s all in the wrists. 

Hit the ball. Get rid of it. Don't take the sliotar into your hand.  Hit it off your hurl. Practice! Practice! Practice!  I love a Saturday or Sunday morning watching young camógs or their wee male club mates learning their hurling skills from older mentors.

That skill which in time will empower a decent hurler or a camóg to strike a sliotar while running at speed so that it finds a team mate sixty yards away across the playing field. Imagine?   How do they do it?  How does  a side line cut happen? How do high fielders pluck a sliothar from the sky from within a forest of hurls? How do they notch up points from the most impossible angles? Or from their own half  of the field? Practice!

How do goalkeepers prevent certain goals? How do they snatch or block or catch sliotars fired at them like cannon balls? What would we be without hurling? What would we do?  Where would we be? It’s part of what we are. We have been doing it for thousands of years.  Practice! Keep your eye on the ball.  Both hands on the hurl. Practice. 

That’s how Limerick won the All Ireland. Belief!  A young lad pucking a ball of a gable wall. On his own. Emulating his heroes. Playing for his county.  A camóg!  Rising to the challenge. Being herself. Pulling on the ball. The sweet thunk sound when she hits the sliotar the way it deserves. The satisfying vibration of the ash stick up your wrist as it strikes  the sliotar  exactly right.  That’s how it starts. Belief. 

That’s what wins. We did it when those who ruled us declared it to be illegal. When carrying a hurling stick, a camán, was deemed by them to be an offence. We refused to stop. And we got better at not stopping. We kept going.  Sliotar up on the hurl. Run like a deer. Puck it forward. Rise like a salmon for a high ball. Do your best. Get there first. Block. Hook. Puck. Pull on it.

Or watch and encourage others doing it. When  we’re not able to hurl does that mean we can’t enable others? To keep it going. To do it better. To give them the means. The supports. The resources.  The example. To play for our club. Our county. To be the All Ireland Champions of the world. Believe. That’s what has kept us going for thousands of years. It’s part of what we are. That’s hurling. As old as Ireland. And as young as tomorrow. 

I love wee lads and wee girls getting used to their first hurl. Only four or five years old. Doing what we have been doing for thousands of years. Just starting. That’s what it is about. Always starting.  No matter what. Decades after we were prohibited from hurling. I love that. The beauty of it. The skill. The magic. Young ones showing us how to hurl. Doing it all again. Doing it better. Keeping it going. 

Or an oul lad pucking  a sliotar for his dog to chase and retrieve. I love that.  Especially on a sea shore. Pucking the sliothar at the sea. Aiming to hit Balor on his one good eye.  Soaring ithe sliotar above the tide. The dog charging into the waves. His head bobbing above the water. The sliotar beyond his reach. But he finds it. Then back to shore to drop it at my feet for me and him to do it all over again. We have been doing it for thousands of years. Emulating our heroes. Cú Chullan  lives. And we get better at it  every year we do it. Well done Galway. Comhghairdeas Limerick. C’mon Antrim. 

I love hurling. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Turf Lodge – A Proud Community

By
This blog attended a very special celebration earlier this week. It was Turf Lodge: 2010 Anois is Arís 50th Anniversary. For those of you who don’t know Turf Lodge is a proud Belfast working class community. Through many difficult years the people of Turf Lodge demonstrated time and time again a commitment to their families and to each other. Like Ballymurphy and Andersonstown, Turf Lodge was one of many estates that were built on the then outskirts of Belfast in the years after the end of World War 2. They were part of a programme of work by Belfast City Corporation known as the ‘Slum clearance and houses redevelopment programme.’ The land on which Turf Lodge was built was eventually bought by the Corporation in June 1956. The name of the estate, it is said, came from a farm on which the estate was built. But it was four years later, in October 1960, and after many disputes and delays between builders and the Corporation, that the first completed houses were handed over for allocation...
2 comments
Read more

Slán Peter John

By
Sinn Féin MP Conor Murphy, Fergal Caraher’s parents, Mary and Peter John, and Sinn Féin Councillors Brendan Curran and Colman Burns at the memorial in South Armagh dedicated to Fergal Caraher It was a fine autumn morning. The South Armagh hilltops, free of British Army forts, were beautiful in the bright morning light as we drove north from Dublin to Cullyhanna to attend the funeral of Peter John Caraher. This blog has known Peter John and the Caraher family for many years. A few weeks ago his son Miceál contacted me to let me know that Peter John was terminally ill. I told him I would call. It was just before the Ard Fheis. Miceál explained to me that Peter John had been told he only had a few weeks left but had forgotten this and I needed to be mindful of that in my conversation. I was therefore a wee bit apprehensive about the visit but I called and I came away uplifted and very happy. Peter John was in great form. We spent a couple of hours craicing away, telling yarns and in his c...
2 comments
Read more

The Myth Of “Shadowy Figures”

By
Mise agus Martin and Ted in Stormont Castle 2018 The demonising of republicans has long been an integral part of politics on this island, and especially in the lead into and during electoral campaigns. Through the decades of conflict Unionist leaders and British governments regularly posed as democrats while supporting anti-democratic laws, censorship and the denial of the rights of citizens who voted for Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin Councillors, party activists and family members were killed by unionist death squads, o ften in collusion with British state forces. Successive Irish governments embraced this demonization strategy through Section 31 and state censorship. Sinn Féin was portrayed as undemocratic and dangerous. We were denied municipal or other public buildings to hold events including Ard Fheiseanna. In the years since the Good Friday Agreement these same elements have sought to sustain this narrative. The leaderships of Fianna Fáil, the Irish Labour Party, the SDLP and...
Post a Comment
Read more