ONE FOR THE ROAD
An ancient Irish sport is played out on the backroads of Cork and Armagh with total commitment and no little skill...
DAVID MURPHY is aiming to win an unprecedented fourth successive European title in Germany this week, a sequence of success that stretches back to 2008. Not that he’s overly confident. Last Sunday on a road in Béal na Bláth, yes that Béal na mBláth, he got knocked out of this year’s All-Ireland championship.
‘Ah, my form’s not too great at the minute,’ Murphy sighs during his lunch break at MSD in Brinny, Co Cork on Thursday afternoon. ‘But, sure, I will give it a lash anyway! I might find some form from somewhere.’
Murphy will be part of the Ireland senior men’s squad who will travel to Meldorf on Wednesday for the 16th European Road Bowling Championships.
This will be the 2020 edition of an event usually held every four years but which had fallen victim to the pandemic over the past two years.
Road bowling conjures up images of a large groups of people lining country roads in rural Cork or
Armagh, watching competitors fling a metal sphere for a couple of miles. Cash can change hands at these events, as this Irish pastime has an association with gambling, although there will be none of that at the European Championships. And the game isn’t solely confined to this island.
In the mid-1960s, a Dutch tourist was on a cycling holiday around Ireland when he came across some road bowling in west Cork. He was struck by how similar it was to a sport played on the moorlands of his native area, close to the German border. He brought news of this Irish game home to Holland. Contact was soon made between Flor Crowley, a Fianna Fáil TD in Cork who was head of road bowling, and his Dutch counterparts. They organised an international match.
Word of the contest spread to the German regions of Ostfriesland and Schleswig-Holstein, where they played lofting, another similar sport. There were differences between each version, but there was enough common ground for an inaugural European Championships that was held in 1969.
In the mid-1990s, an Italian team was introduced because of boccetta, a game played on the Adriatic coast that closely resembles road bowling.
Over three days next weekend in the charming German city of Meldorf, about 100km north of Hamburg, they will play all three versions. Dutch moor bowling on Friday and German lofting on Saturday, before concluding with the road bowling on Sunday.
‘With other sports that are similar, say Gaelic football and Aussie Rules or hurling and shinty, they play a hybrid game, taking bits from both. But here, we do each other’s event,’ explains Billy McAuliffe, who will manage the Irish team in Germany.
‘So, the first event this year will be the Dutch moor bowling. It is played on a manicured 1,500m track that’s sort of like a par five hole on a golf course. Each bowler gets 10 shots from the starting point and you are measured where your 10th and final shot ends up,’ McAuliffe says.
The Dutch bowl is different to the Irish version too as it is wooden with metal studs.
‘It’s lighter, much lighter, so you have to change your throwing style,’ Murphy points out. ‘It’s a totally different way of throwing it. If you threw it the way we do here, you could easily injure your shoulder.’
The following day is the German lofting, which takes place inside a soccer stadium.
‘With the loft, you throw it like a javelin. You get three shots from the same spot and all of them are measured,’ McAuliffe says. ‘The Germans are the masters of the lofting. Even if we trained non-stop for a year, we wouldn’t get close to them.’
The championships will conclude with the road bowling, which is what all the Irish players grew up with.
And there is a big squad travelling over, with 12 senior men players, 10 senior women and half-a-dozen Under 18 boys and girls. And then there are officials, coaches and road-showers, who are like a caddy in golf in that they advise the bowlers of the contours of the road.
‘It’s a pity that these championships were delayed by two years, because it means most of those picked for the under-18s back in 2020 are now overage,’ says McAuliffe, whose first experience of the European Championships was as a teenager in 1994.
Like many in the sport, McAuliffe was born into it. His grandfather bowled, as did his father. ‘And now my three kids are doing it, reluctantly!’ he says with a chuckle. ‘Our sport is unusual in that anyone from five to 95 can play it.’
McAuliffe comes from Glanworth, the most northerly club in Cork. ‘Next stop for road bowling is Armagh,’ he explains, pointing at the strange geographical disparity of the sport. ‘Nobody really knows why the sport
survived and thrived
It is passed down from generation to generation – it’s a family thing
in these two counties, so far apart, but they have. And even though we have clubs sprouting up around the country, in Mayo and Louth, what you usually find is that they are exiles from Cork or Armagh who have started them.’
McAuliffe agrees that the association with gambling is something that the sport has found difficult to move away from, although Bol Cumann na hÉireann, the governing body, has been proactive in that regard.
‘Gambling is part of the sport, betting on the outcome is part of it, but it is not the only part of it. At the Europeans this week, there will be no gambling. And at underage events, there is no gambling.
‘For U16 and lower, it is not tolerated at all, and people get suspended for a year if they are found to be doing it and the organisation is very strict on that.
‘When road bowling does make the headlines, it might be because there is €50,000 or €100,000 gambled on a single match, but there is much more to the sport than that.’
The inclusiveness isn’t simply restricted to the age profile. The travelling community are much more involved in road bowling than in many other sports in the country. And there is a big female participation. At this week’s European championship, Kelly Mallon – the best female bowler in the country – will be one of Ireland’s main medal hopes. She will travel to Germany fresh from captaining Armagh in today’s Ulster ladies football final against Donegal in Clones.
Gretta Cormican has been a trailblazer in the sport. When women were first allowed to compete in the European Championship in 1984, she won the first title and has claimed seven All-Ireland titles in a glittering career.
She has now moved into administration, running competitions, coaching children, taking photos and compiling record books. Next week, she will be the manager of the senior women’s team.
‘I started playing because it was
big in my family. It’s the same for nearly everyone,’ Cormican says.
‘My four brothers played and I started playing in my early teens. That’s just the way it is. It is passed down from generation to generation, it is a family thing.
‘I suppose that is one of the issues with the sport that we find it very hard to get fresh blood in.
‘Take the influx of Polish people into Ireland over the past 15 years, there are no Poles bowling. So that is a challenge for the sport, how do we attract people who haven’t grown up with it?’
And the sport has to get away from its image as a throwback to a different time.
Even though the events are wellorganised now, with stewards in hivis jackets ensuring that all passing motorists are well aware that a ‘score’ is taking place, there is a sense among some of the general public that this belongs to Ireland’s bygone ways. ‘There are so many other attractions for people now, so many other sports for kids, it is hard to get them interested,’ McAuliffe agrees.
‘But there is a lot that goes into being a road bowler, especially at the elite level. Next Sunday, as Murphy and Mallon go for individual gold, and the two senior Irish teams try to claim first place in their own event, there will be advisors and road-showers who will be part of the effort.
‘It is very like lining up a putt in golf. You might have to go an inch or two to the left for the bowl to come into the right. You have to follow the contours of the road,’ McAuliffe explains. ‘And this is where your road-shower comes in, it is like a caddy in golf. He acts as your target and shows where you should be aiming.’ David Murphy’s father John is coming over to act as his road-shower next Sunday, and also for Murphy’s younger brother Aidan who is playing too. As is clear, the sport is a family affair.
And, just like a caddy, it is about trusting what you are told. Golf is the analogy that is reached for most when explaining road bowling to a novice. A n d that’s understandable. What also makes road bowling unusual is that a player can call a foul on his opponent.
If they go beyond the mark, or sop, from which they are supposed to throw from. If they pass the tip, their infraction is dealt with by three different colours, blue, which is less serious, means you are docked two metres. Yellow, the thrower is docked five and red, you are ejected from the game.
The Irish team have been preparing for these European Championships since last October. Initially, there were trials before a squad was selected. And the past few months has involved a lot of practice – and two nights a week of strength and conditioning work.
‘I was training a couple of times a week for this, did some strength and conditioning work in Bandon twice a week, but you would always have a bowl in the car and any time you see a good bit of road, you might get out and have a bowl on it. That’s what we all do,’ Murphy says.
That’s the attraction of the sport. All you need is the 28-ounce metal sphere (20-ounce for juvenile throwers) and a stretch of road.
‘It’s one of the reasons why this sport is so inclusive. It’s often said with football all you need is a ball and a yard of grass. Well, with bowling, all you need is a stretch of road and a metal ball,’ McAuliffe observes.
This coming week in a small city in northern Germany, the cream of the crop in Irish bowling, filled with national pride, will come together and prove that, even in the frenetic pace of the modern world, there is a place for this ancient tradition on Irish roads.