Hurling In Ancient Ireland
It is said that even the ancient gods practised and enjoyed
their game of hurling on Mount Olympus. We are led to believe
that, at one time, it was a popular game along the southern shores
of the Meditteranean, and that ancient carvings on cave rocks,
discovered some years ago, depict players, with a ball, carrying
sticks resembling our present-day hurley. The sport is believed to
have been known in Ireland since the time the first men set foot on
our shores, close on four thousand years ago.
According to the "Book of Leinster" a hurling match was the
curtain-raiser to a set battle for the mastery of Ireland between the
Tuatha de Dannans and the dominant Firboigs at Moytura, near
Cong, Co. Mayo. Twenty-seven chosen heroes from each side took
part in that important game.
When Lugh Lamh-Fhada rode down from Naas to found the
Tailteann Games in the district of the present-day town of Trim,
hurling was the highlight of the festival and continued as such for
nearly two thousand years. It became the favourite sport of prince
and peasant. Around the year 500 B.C. Mann, son of the King of
Leinster was cured of dumbness by the accidental blow of a hurley
during a game.
Cuchulainn won his earliest fame in hurling. Did not Fionn
MacCumhaill and the Fianna spend their days hunting, fighting
and hurling. Women of royalty were brought to watch the pick of
the Fianna play the rest of Ireland. The man who scored the
winning goal could demand three kisses from any lady of his choice
among the spectators. The Fianna spent some of their time in the
Ballyhoura Mountains and it is reasonable to assume that it was
they who played the first games of hurling in the Ballyhea area. As
evidence of the Fianna's presence in the Ballyhoura Mountains we
have the following place-names - "Seefin, meaning Fionn's place
of rest, Glenosheen, meaning Oisin's Glen, and Leaba Oscair
meaning Oscar's Bed.
What a contrasting story to that of the man of the Fianna, who
scored the winning goal is told about a North Cork hurler of eighty
years ago. This man wanted to make an impression on a certain girl
who was the "apple of his eye." How disappointed he was, after
having played the game of his life and scoring the winning goal, to
see his girl walk off the field with a rival lover. He smashed his
hurley and cast it away from him declaring: "If you drove a ball as
far as Halley's Comet it wouldn't get a woman for you." Halley's
Comet was last seen in 1911.
In the far distant ages the players' hurleys were banded with
either gold, silver, bronze or brass, according to the rank of the
owner. Under the "Statutes of Kilkenny" in 1367 the game of
hurling was banned as it was one of the factors contributing to
making the Normans "more Irish than the Irish themselves." In
the 17th century some of the English settlers were found to be
betting heavily on games between their tenantry. In fact a hurling
team was brought from England to play before William of Orange.
Until the last century hurling was played in Cornwall and in the
western part of Wales, and, on the odd occasion a cross-channel
team came over to play hurling in Wexford.
