World Heritage Status for Hurling?

SIR,

Having been served up so many enthralling (fill in the superlatives as you please) hurling games in this year’s championships, culminating in the Treaty v Tribes for the bog-butter vessel, is there a case to propose that the game be afforded World Heritage Status?

After all, it’s a vibrant sport coupled with a proud Irish tradition but does such a category exist? … I dunno!

Nothing short of ‘Zen and the Art of Hurling’ akin to a Celtic Shaolin Monk’s workout … the mind and eyes boggle and I suspect that the apertures of the TV cameras will have to be reset and re-jigged to compensate for the increase in the modern game’s speed, panache and fleetness of foot.

Just view the stats in the recent weeks. The number of minutes of playing time, plus extra times; the number of players including subs and live playing time v stoppage times. There are the skills too which are evolving year on year. For example, the accuracy of the sideline-cut that would make Tiger or Rory wince; the Puck Fada; ingenuity of evading and making tackles; first touch; free-flow; absence of feigning injury and no ‘sledging’; not a foul stroke and yellow cards too few to mention. There’s also the sheer athleticism of keeping the blades low on the green sward, earning that favoured Americanism, truly awesome.

And to augment this unforgettable championship of hurling on the pitch we feasted on the three-part documentary ‘The Game’ on RTÉ which included in-depth perspectives exploring the geography, the insightful archaeology and mythology of hurling to its very origins when Setanta did slay the Hound of Chulainn with the swirling sliotar on the fields of Tailtiú, coupled with the social and revolutionary timeline coinciding with the Gaelic League and the very foundation of the GAA itself.

So with this in mind and bearing in mind the game’s amateur status, which astounds people of ‘sporting creeds’ from all over the world, as contestants (or combatants) have to report for work or college the following day as if leading ‘double-lives’, is there a case for Hurling, hard to pin it down as sport or art, be proposed for World Heritage Status?

I think most definitely so. As they say in polite discourse, ‘please discuss’. Not forgetting hurling’s sister game, Camogie too … Bualadh Bos !

Yours Thomas O’Sullivan, Alohart, Beaufort.

Photo by Diarmuid Greene William O’Donoghue raises the Liam McCarthy Cup alongside manager John Kiely and members of the team during the Limerick AllIreland Hurling winning team homecoming as the bus makes it’s way to the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick.