Footballers played hurling to start the first ever All-Ireland
THE RECENT near-universal acclaim for ‘The Game’, the threepart television series celebrating hurling, has heightened interest in its origins and history. Visually it was a stunning production, with camera work of an astounding quality, but one aspect of it left me cold.
That was the complete lack of insight or explanation into why hurling is, and has always been, played to a high standard in such a small number of counties.
The programme was a P.R. dream from the G.A.A’s point of view, given that it made no attempt to tackle this issue.
One of the main on-screen contributors was historian Paul Rouse, whose excessive hand gestures when making a point took attention away from his comments in my view.
However, the man who served briefly as Senior football manager of his native Offaly this year has to be fully commended for his new book, ‘The Hurlers - The First All-Ireland Championship and the Making of Modern Hurling’.
History, by its very nature, can be a stuffy subject to relay in print, but this book zips along at a lively pace and the level of research is staggering.
That first championship took place in
1887, and wasn’t finished until the following year, with Tipperary representatives
Thurles defeating Meelick from Galway in the final in Birr, Co. Offaly.
It had been organised on an open draw basis and, in keeping with normal practice in the early years of the G.A.A., several of the games were either decided in the boardroom or didn’t take place at all.
Wexford had the distinction of playing in the first-ever game in the championship, on July 24, 1887, but the circumstances were bizarre to say the least.
The draw pitted them against Galway in both hurling and football, but there was a big problem: Galway had no football teams, and were only willing to send hurling representatives, and it was the other way around in Wexford.
There wasn’t even a hurling club in the county in 1887, let alone a championship, but Castlebridge had won the football.
Their members duly called a meeting and decided to take on the Galway men in hurling - the first game they would ever play.
After making sticks specially for the occasion, it was probably an achievement in itself to only lose by 3-8 to 1-0.
That was the start of an interest in the small ball that would culminate in Castlebridge powering Wexford’s first All-Ireland hurling triumph in 1910.
Given the success of the current club championships, established in 1971, it’s very interesting to be reminded that the early inter-county teams were drawn from the club winners.
And one of the men chiefly responsible for promoting the fledgling game of hurling and bringing it to the masses was P.P. Sutton, a native of Oulart and a keen player himself with the Metropolitans in Dublin, who was a journalist with the weekly newspaper, ‘Sport’.
Sadly, he was just 36 years old when he died of pneumonia in June, 1901. Before his passing he had written: ‘To Wexford I am bound by ties as strong as steel’.
With its publication arriving mere weeks after the conclusion of what most observers regard as the best-ever All-Ireland hurling championship, this is a timely reminder of how times were so markedly different more than 130 years ago.
It’s an absorbing read, not least because the foresight of the game’s founding fathers - as outlined so vividly here - has given us a sport, and a pastime, to be immensely proud of.
ALAN AHERNE
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