Saturday, July 11th, 2009-Sunday, July 12th, 2009
To begin with, Hurling is a sport…not the act of someone heaving up the contents of their stomach. Well, okay technically it is both, but in Ireland, I’m talking about the former. So no more Facebook messages asking me how the throwing up was, okay?
Hurling is officially now my new favorite sport, astonishing really considering I usually detest all sports with the passion of a thousand suns. A Gaelic sport under the GAA, it’s something like a combination between field hockey, lacrosse, and football (soccer). And, I’m really sorry to say, it has made me lose all respect for American sports/athletes because they now look like the biggest pansies in the world.
To begin with, players don’t wear padding…at all. Helmets are even optional. And these guys are running around whacking each other with big wooden sticks. They also don’t get paid—there are no pro-hurling teams (aside from maybe the national team) so all of the players have day jobs. And it is such a popular sport that the town literally shuts down for the match and everyone wears their team colors.
These are all things I learned from going to the Munster Hurling finals. Our trip began at the glorious hour of 9 a.m. when went down to reception and got on our chartered bus (our friend James, who planned the whole thing, got us a chartered bus). We then made the drive down to Nenagh, a town about thirty minutes away from the match where some of James’s family lives. After waiting around for nearly two hours to check into the hostel (which was literally next to a lake and was actually quite nicer than our dorms), we made our way into town, made harder by the fact that it was a ten-minute drive and James could only fit four people at a time into his borrowed car.
So after three trips, we all finally made it. Most of the group immediately went into a pub to start drinking (it was about 3 p.m. by now) and I went to get something to eat. The rest of the group moved to another pub and I decided to explore the town rather than sit in a pub all day since that was what we were going to be doing all night. So I wandered about the town until we moved pubs again, this time meeting up with James and his cousins to watch the Galway v. Clare match (which Galway won…at least their hurlers are better than their football players). We stayed out until nearly 1 a.m. before a few of us decided to get a cab back to the hostel.
Sunday started even more bright and early with us waking up at 8 a.m. in order to be ready for our full Irish breakfast at 9. We ate breakfast, then got into a shuttle to take us to Thurles where the match was being held. Once there, it began raining off and on so, after buying some Tip gear from vendors (I got a flag) we ducked into Supermac’s to wait out the time to the match.
After a long walk up to the stadium, we found our places (we actually stood the entire match…but seeing as how the standing sections are at either end of the field, we actually had a pretty good view). The first match was the lower or more amateur league, I guess, which Waterford won (boo). Then it was time for the main event: The Munster Final.
Even though I knew pretty much nothing about hurling, it quickly became very interesting to watch. Teams score a point for making it through the posts above the goal (think football) and three points for actually making it inside the goal. By the halftime, Tipperary was up 10 points on Waterford and we were all fairly confident that Tip would win. Waterford gave them a run for their money the second half, however, but Tipperary still managed to find by five points.
After the game, we made our way through the mass of people back into town and had dinner before going to a pub for a celebratory drink. We met our bus at 9 p.m. and, exhausted, made it back to Galway around 11:30.
Next stop: The Aran Islands
(Castle next to our hostel, at the Tip match, hurlers)
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