St Patrick’s Day 2023: Where Gaelic games rule supreme

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Ireland is a great sporting nation: from the classics to the downright bizarre, we take a look at how they keep themselves active

(PHOTO: FLICKR/CIARAN MCGUIGGAN)

Roy Keane, Brian O’Driscoll, Stephen Roche… Ireland has always produced great athletes and probably always will. With a population comparable in size to Denmark’s, the Irish continue to beat their weight in international sport.

Most of the usual suspects

They are world number one in rugby union at the moment and with the World Cup just around the corner in France who knows if they can lift the trophy on October 28th.

Football is also very popular in Ireland but unfortunately the national team has seen better days.

On the greens, Ireland holds its own – it’s apparently the most golf-loving nation in the world and Rory McIlroy is currently the third-best player in the world.

But the less tennis is talked about, the better. Simon Carr (852) and Sinead Lohan (1,484) are their top ranked players!

There is no lack of success

Boxing has always had a large following in Ireland, as have the other bookies’ favorite sports, horse racing and greyhound racing – so something of a pattern there.

An Irish cyclist, Stephen Roche, became the first athlete from the British Isles to win the Tour de France, a quarter of a century before the second, Bradley Wiggins.

And Ireland is no jumping chicken at the Olympics, where it sits 54th on the all-time list. Swimmer Michelle Smith is her most decorated Olympian, although she is no longer mentioned in polite conversation, although the doping allegations have never been proven.

Spiritual home of sport

However, none of the above sports is more popular than the Gaelic Games, Ireland’s very own sporting heritage. These sports, unique to Ireland, have been around for centuries and some for millennia.

Croke Park in Dublin is the spiritual home of the Gaelic Games as well as the seat of the Gaelic Athletic Association. Under the watchful eye of the GAA, these traditional sports are as popular as ever, and Croke Park regularly fills to capacity.

As St Patrick’s Day approaches, here are some of the most popular Gaelic games:

Gaelic football

As of 2022 this is Ireland’s most popular sport. Known simply as ‘Gaelic’ or ‘GAA’ in Ireland, this crazy sport is probably best described as a cross between football and rugby with a bit of basketball thrown in for good measure. Played with a regular soccer ball, points are scored by honking the ball through the opponent’s goalposts. Confusing to the uninitiated, there are both football and rugby goal posts. Whatever the case, the Irish clearly love it, with over 80,000 spectators flocking to Croke Park each year to watch the All-Ireland Senior Championship.

Sling

Hurling features prominently in Irish legend and folklore and has existed in Ireland for thousands of years. Described as “the finest and most skillful of traditional Irish sports”, it’s a little like hockey, but only a little. Each player has a club called a ‘Hurley’ – Camán in Gaelic – with which they hit or pick up a small leather ball called a ‘sliotar’. Points are scored by hurling the sliotar through the same type of goal posts found in Gaelic football. Hurling is played at a breakneck pace and is considered the fastest field sport in the world. In Scotland there is a sport similar to hurling called shinty. In fact, they are so similar that the Shinty-Hurling International series is held annually, uniting the Gaelic nations of Scotland and Ireland.

camogie

Camogie is essentially slingshots but played by women. Curiously, the sport was mentioned by Irish playwright Samuel Beckett in his absurdist masterpiece Waiting for Godot, although I won’t include the quote here as it doesn’t make much sense.

Gaelic handball

If St Paddy’s Day three-legged race doesn’t give you enough exercise, then this is probably the easiest Gaelic game to play at home. Unrelated to Olympic handball – which the Danes keep reminding them they’re the best in the world – it’s a bit like squash, except the ball is bigger and you use your hands instead of a racquet. Most people will have played some version of this game as a kid. There are four different variants – softball, 4-wall, 1-wall and hardball – but forget all that: as long as you have a wall and a ball and a buddy, you can play.

all-rounder

Is Rounders a Gaelic game? Apparently, although exactly the same game is being played in the UK. Granted, it’s not very exciting.

Spoil five

Played in pubs across Ireland, it is the country’s national card game. It is over 400 years old and linked to the even older Scottish Maw game. Like poker, Spoil Five is played with chips, and players must win it by stealing, robbing, joking, and cashing out – just to name a few of the game-specific terms. Like poker, Spoil Five is a game often used for gambling. Even WB Yeats wrote about it, speaking of “old men playing cards with a wink of old hands”. Cards are at the heart of Irish culture and any good pub will have a deck.

Check out our entire St Patrick’s Day 2023 supplement here.