Kick It, Hurl It. . . They Will Come
Talking Balls Comments
With gaelic games increasingly developing a ‘build it and they will come’ reputation, Mickey Harte’s often derided comments about globalizing the GAA to provide an national/international dimension to our games are less fanciful than they may seem.
Peter ‘Mon Dieu’ Canavan was involved over Easter in hosting a visit from the Liffre GAA club in Brittany along with Danny Stewart from Ballycastle and the Newbridge club in Derry. Bretons of course fall within the family of Celts with similarities in music, language and culture but the visit revealed the startling statistic that in Brittany there are currently six GAA clubs and up to 80 school GAA teams, who played their first tournament in April. The more surprising fact is that these teams are made up exclusively of native Bretons – not Irish fellas that are looking to keep the games alive on a foreign soil. Vive la France, Allez Les Bleus or whatever they say in Breton.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtN1Jlu_D4k[/youtube]
An equally intriguing story has emerged from UC Berkeley, one the USA’s top research educational institutions where a hurling club has been established, again almost entirely with a local player base and only a few Irish players. The establishment of the club has not been without its pitfalls with the University authorities refusing to sanction the creation of an official University Hurling club. UC Berkeley hurler Sam Crenshaw writes in the college paper:
“Since the beginning of the fall semester, I have been part of a great team on campus – the Hurling Team. I know many people do not have the faintest clue of what this sport is or even if it’s the one on ice with brooms or not. Hurling is one of the world’s oldest sports, with a long tradition in Irish mythology going back 2000 years.”
“Hurling is an amazingly exciting and fast-paced game that has already made history on campus. But the administrative staff have barred us from becoming a club here on campus. After our historic win, when a hurley was put up on the wall of The Bear’s Lair with the victorious score alongside a team photo, it was demanded to be taken down and confiscated by the sports club administration.”
Interestingly their struggle has attracted the solidarity and support of those other rebels, Kevin Hartnett and Donal Og Cusack.
UC Berkeley and Stanford have established clubs and created their own series of games, the first intercollegiate hurling games in the US.
When you consider that and the establishment of hurling in Milwaukee thourgh the efforts of Dave Olsen, again an American, it shows that if you can hurl it, they will come.
