Lonely planets description of hurling

blondie83

Just got this in an email and thought I'd post it up. It's actually quite amusing, but I think it's more suited to here than the humour forum or the GAA forum

Lonely Planets description of Hurling!
Hurling isn't what the Irish do when they've had too much Guinness (well, not always). It's actually a mad kind of aerial hockey invented to make the English feel embarrassed about tiggy-touchwood soccer. If you haven't had the twisted pleasure of seeing this example of man's inhumanity to man, head to the Emerald Isle - but keep your head down. This 15-century-old activity pulls no punches. A hurling match is perhaps the fastest spectator sport in the world (with only ice hockey matching it for up-close frenzy).From a distance it resembles a roaming pack-fight between men with thin pale legs and names like Liam and Sean. At ground level it's much more frightening, a kind of 15-a-side escape from the asylum. Hurling is rapid, breakneck and
rambunctious. The game moves too fast for the novice to understand
anything but the most basic rules, but you can start by imagining an egg-and-spoon race with a pack of enormous angry stick-wielding roosters charging the leader. The aim is to hurtle a pellet-hard ball called a sliotar into goals using a stick with a paddle at its end (hurley). The players balance the
sliotar on their hurley and then run, hit or bounce it forward, sometimes with all limbs attached. It's when the ball falls loose into a pack that the bravery (or stupidity) of the combatants becomes clear. The running game becomes like a stationery game of no-rules hockey as players run in swinging their hurleys in the manner of a lumberjack on speed. Whacks to the shins are common, as is the occasional broken hand as some poor soul actually tries to pick the sliotar up out of this chaos. The best place to see hurling is the
atmospheric Croke Park in Dublin. It's home of the GAA - hurling's governing body - and the scene of high-attendance finals matches. For those with an interest in the game's long history, Croke Park also hosts a high-tech museum. Of course, with the Irish being such great travelers, there's probably a game going on near you this weekend too.

woosaysdan

it was already posted on humour a couple of weeks ago

Mossy Monk

blondie83 wrote:

The best place to see hurling is the
atmospheric Croke Park in Dublin

is that the humour of the piece

damnyanks

Its where Kilkenny seem to play a lot

Big Ears

damnyanks wrote:

Its where Kilkenny seem to play a lot

well then its definetly not where the best atmostphere is .

Thurles and Parc í Caoimh are the places for the atmostphere .

therecklessone

Nobody has managed to top the description of hurling as "a cross between hockey and murder" yet, but that was a nice try...

simu

I once saw written in a Lonely Planet guide that Ireland has "very few social taboos" - what planet are these guys on?

tba

simu wrote:

I once saw written in a Lonely Planet guide that Ireland has "very few social taboos" - what planet are these guys on?

A LONLEY ONE

Flukey

We have a lot less taboos than we once had!

simu

Flukey wrote:

We have a lot less taboos than we once had!

Yup, you have a threesome with the corpse of your granny and your amputated pet dog in the middle of a pub and no one blinks an eye anymore.

penguinbloke

simu wrote:

Yup, you have a threesome with the corpse of your granny and your amputated pet dog in the middle of a pub and no one blinks an eye anymore.

That image is going to haunt me for the rest of my life.

why would you amputate your pet dog?

simu

penguinbloke wrote:

That image is going to haunt me for the rest of my life.

why would you amputate your pet dog?

I don't know - gangrene? - but it makes the image more disgusting.

gogo

these french people once camped in our garden and my father ever the gaa fan tried to explain hurling to them, they couldn't understand a word and so he got a video of some final that was on, and of course it was the one where they were just hopping the crap outta one another. The french guys were horrified and kept looking at my father like he was mad.
It was hilarous.

Sleepy

therecklessone wrote:

Nobody has managed to top the description of hurling as "a cross between hockey and murder" yet, but that was a nice try...

Who's that quote from? It's brilliant!

Akula

damnyanks wrote:

Its where Kilkenny seem to play a lot

Its where they are going to lose badly to Cork pretty soon :-P

vickyval

This is a bit long and I don't know the author, but it is hilarious!

I was immediately surprised to find out that, unlike most field games,
hurling doesn't involve the use of a ball. Look as closely as you like
at any game of hurling and you'll see no ball. At first, I thought the
ball must be too small and travelling at too great a speed to be
visible to the naked, non-Corkonian, Kilkennian or Tipperarian eye. But I
quickly realised that hurling is, in fact, a stick-breaking
competition, in which the object of the game is to break your weapon,
a thick ash stick, either against your opponent's stick (like the reverse of the
principle of conkers) or, failing that, against his limbs, torso, head
etc. While the weapon remains unbroken, it is used to weaken the
opponent's resistance and thus make it easier to chase him down and
improve your chances of a successful break.

The stick is called a hurley and there are three parts to it -

- the warhead, which is the heavy end of the weapon, usually reinforced
with steel bands. It is used for cudgelling, bludgeoning and inflicting
contusions, concussion and localised damage to the head and body of the
opponent;

- the blade this is the sharpened, curved part of the device, just
above the warhead area, which is effective in slicing through fleshy tissue
and in routine amputation applications;

- the butt, which is the stabbing end of the apparatus, used for
tenderising the opponent's rib cartilage.

The only protective equipment used is the helmet. Helmets come in a
variety of styles. Many players wear knee-pads tied to the tops of
their heads, some stick their heads up through the bottom of a canary-cage
and one lad from Cork wears a deep-fat fryer. The headgear also comes in
various colours because, apparently, no two players on any team are
allowed to wear the same colour.

The game starts with two players from each side standing, fully armed,
in the middle of the field. On a signal from the referee, they start to
beat each other about the ankles with their sticks until the referee
blows a whistle. When he blows it again, other sets of combatants lay
into each other, trying to break their sticks, either overhead against
their opponent's weapon in a sort of aerial fencing (known as "the
clash of the ash") or on the opponent himself (the gash of the ash).

When a player succeeds in breaking his stick - a smash of the ash - a
huge roar goes up from the crowd, the player waves his broken stick
above his head in triumph and immediately he is thrown a replacement
weapon from a store that is kept on the sideline (the stash of the
ash).
The crowd roars at other random occasions also, in what appears to be a
side competition between the two sets of supporters, because when they
roar, a man in a white coat holds up a white flag, in the manner of an
umpire in football.

If the roar is really loud, he waves a green flag.

If a player manages to strike his opponent on the hand or in the
stomach area, this is known as a "dirty pull" and is one of the principal
skills of the game. The only form of violence not permitted is pushing an
opponent in the back and referees deal mercilessly with offenders
against this rule. On the other hand, crippling, mangling, maiming and
disembowelling and all other forms of lash with the ash are quite in
order.

The contest continues until there are no spare sticks left and the
referee declares a winner, presumably based on a combination of broken
stick count and number of casualties which, considering the weaponry
deployed and the ferocity of the conflict is usually remarkably few.

As a result of this preliminary research, I came to a few obvious
conclusions:

Kilkenny must be disarmed - by force if necessary; weapons inspectors
must be given access to Cork and Tipperary and there is finally an
explanation for the fact that the Romans never came to Ireland.

I discovered also that only teachers, students and policemen play the
game.

This makes sense, everybody else has work to go to.

StupidLikeAFox

Sounds like an englishmans description, both of them really. Hurlings a ridiculously skillful game

therecklessone

Sleepy wrote:

Who's that quote from? It's brilliant!

I got it in an e-mail ages ago, was part of a guide to living in Ireland.

Can't recall the source,sorry.