* Disclaimer: The following is based on our admittedly limited understanding of Gaelic sports. Inaccuracies may exist. Any reader who finds a discrepancy, please feel free to let us know in a gentle, non-condemning way. We understand the seriousness of one's attachment to sport.
The GAA -
The GAA -
The Gaelic Athletic Association, or GAA, consists primarily of two major sporting leagues: Hurling and Gaelic Football - though, to be thorough, the GAA also includes handball and rounders, and promotes elements of culture such as Irish dance, music, and language (how do you compete in language?!). Both are fast-paced field games involving moving a ball around a 100 meter field very quickly, with the aim of scoring either through uprights or in the netted-goals below them.
The GAA has a rather interesting cultural-political history, which we learned about through the enthusiastic ramblings of Uncle Finbar, a man who has consistently avoided all GAA sports for the last 37 years due to some of their political decisions back in the 70s. Finbar's long lived GAA grudge, stems primarily from their ban on players (all of whom are unpaid) participating in non-GAA sports in their free time. The GAA would, historically speaking, suspend a player if that player was observed or found to be participating in “English” games such as soccer or rugby in their free time or during the off season (which we think is a two week period sometime in September). Though this policy is no longer in place, these unfair actions on the part of the GAA continues to rub Uncle Finbar the wrong way (perhaps the counter-cultural direction) -displaying a grudge that only a proper Irish sports fan, or a WWE wrestler named The Detonator, could be proud of.
Here is a more detailed account of the history of GAA, for anyone interested.
Also for your viewing pleasure, is the Official GAA youtube station.
Brief overview of the two main GAA sports (aka 2/3 of the Irish national past time):
Hurling. Hurling and Camogie are the same sport, played with the same rules and the same equipment, but separated by the equipment in your pants. Camogie, pronounced “ka-mo-gee”, is simply played by females. From what we gather, as Ireland continues in being a patriarchal culture (with much the rest of the world), the sport itself in almost always referred to as Hurling - only further specified when women are on the field. For the sake of simplicity, we will follow this unfortunate rule, though Camogie is more fun to say and seems a bit more Irish... but whatever. Hurling is played on a soccer-sized field with net goals set up on either end (like in soccer or hockey), under uprights (like in American football or rugby). The baseball-sized “slitter” is moved up the field by either whacking it (technical term) - usually with a hurly (the over sized wooden mixing spoon in picture) and occasionally with a bare hand - or by dribbling it on the hurly (think egg-on-spoon race at a 6 year old's birthday party). The person on the receiving end of a pass is catching the slitter with their bare hands (sounds dirty), then is given a 4 step window before either passing, dribbling, or scoring (...you know...scoring... with a slitter... still dirty). Goals are scored when a player uses the hurly to whack the slitter through the uprights (for one point) or into the protected net goal (for three points). Players are generally capable of scoring through the uprights from the very edge of mid-field while sprinting full out with a sizable man running at him brandishing a club like object (highly skilled scoring with a slitter). For Example.
Gaelic Football. Gaelic Football, or Football as it's plainly called here, retains its name no matter which sex is playing, though “Ladies” is added as prefix to differentiate (because the boobs on the field weren't clarifying enough). The rules for Gaelic Football are quite similar to Hurling with regards to scoring, but to move the soccer-size ball around the field, one must bounce the ball (like basketball dribbling) or kick the ball to ones self (like a hacky-sack) every 4 steps while sprinting up field, or pass it up field with either a kick or an underhand volleyball serve style hit. If that doesn't sounds like a broken ankle and lot of accidental somersaults, I don't know what does. Here is an inspirational video example.
Our Limited experience:
While in Dublin, we had the opportunity to attend a playoff game between Tipperary and Cork, our new hometown, at the famous Croke Park.
Aside: Without going into too much detail, Croke Park has an incredible history, which you can find here and is, in part, famous due to the first of two Bloody Sundays (the one in 1920, not the one in 1972 that has been chiseled into our hearts by the musical stylings of U2) during which British forces rolled into the middle of the field during a hurling match and opened fire on Irish citizens, killing 14 people.
It being a GAA semi-final that we were attending, I'm sure that the extensive amount of questions with which we grilled our neighboring Cork fans through the entire match, were well appreciated. Especially when Cork lost miserably, encouraging Cork fans everywhere to rip off their jerseys in embarrassment and throw them by the wayside in disgust (thanks to Colin for our new jersey, we don't even mind that you spit on it before handing it over). To be fair, Tipp went on to play in the Finals, so obviously they were worthy opponents.
By the end of the match we felt we had an understanding of the basics enough that we were ready to try our hand at these new sports (practically experts). So, during International Student Orientation Week, we decided to skip the discussion on immigration paperwork, and head down to the pitch where a few members of the Hurling team hosted an “Intro to GAA Sports”. Here we learned how to pick up a slitter with a hurly, balance the slitter on the hurly while running without any such order or direction (dangerous), and juggle the slitter on all sides of the hurly (reminiscent of Kandamo, the Hawaii middle-school-phenomenon, but without the helpful attachment string). Then we were given free reign to practice whacking the slitter as hard as possible around the field with both right and left hands (what could possibly go wrong?). Given the language barriers, varying levels of athleticism and peripheral awareness, along with the encouragement to attempt ambidexterity, one can imagine the delightful chaos that ensued. We gracefully excused ourselves to a far corner of the field so we would have full whackability range, which incidentally, we didn't really need. It's a bit harder than it looks to get real distance. With only minimal bruising and one accidental run in with a giant spiderweb, we moved on to the Gaelic Football skills.
As said, Gaelic Football is played with a soccer-sized ball that both looks and feels much like a cheap outdoor volleyball—the kind that leave your forearms instantly bruised at the family 4th of July BBQ. The introduction of the football resulted immediately in all of the Latin American and European mainland students taking up the entire middle of the field to play fútbol, leaving the remaining handful of us to practice our skills in kicking a ball back toward our selves, while running, and without actually taking a hit to the face. Nothing quite like the frustration of being hit in the face and having no one to blame but yourself. Trust me. We also practiced the running hand bounce, which the rules state you can only do once, but which does serve to change up the already confusing pace of running three steps before kicking the ball back into your own hands without toppling over.
Needless to say, both games require a high skill set that is unmatched, truly, in any sports familiar to either of us. Both are great fun to try and really fun to watch.
