Hurling match to be played in ancestral steps
Hurling club to play exhibition, offer clinic during Leprechaun Days
Hurling has two teams of about 15 players each racing up and down the field as they attempt to score points by hitting the ball into a soccer-type goal (three points) or through a set of uprights set on top of the goal (one point). Photo by Twin Cities Robert Emmets Hurling Club
by Tad Johnson
Thisweek Newspapers
When a hurling match is staged at the Rosemount High School athletic fields Saturday, July 31, it is possible it will be the same game that was played more than 100 years ago in that location.
Rosemount residents will have a chance to see and even try their skill at the two-millenia-old Irish game as part of Rosemount Leprechaun Days.
The Minnesota Irish Cultural Center and Twin Cities Robert Emmets Hurling Club will stage the game, which will start after the Grand Day Parade, probably after 2 p.m.
Longtime Rosemount resident Kevin Carroll, a frequent volunteer with the cultural center, helped connect all the proverbial dots to organize the game, which will also include a short concert by the Brian Boru Irish Pipe Band playing traditional bagpipe tunes.
The hurling club has long sought to bring its game to the Twin Cities masses, and the Irish theme of Leprechaun Days seemed a logical first step.
“Many of Rosemount’s founders and early settlers were Irish immigrants who undoubtedly participated in or watched hurling matches before they came to America,” Carroll said. “They, and perhaps their children, probably set up hurling matches in and around Rosemount in the mid-to-late 1800s.”
Carroll refers to hurling as the grandfather of many modern sports. It has elements of lacrosse, field hockey, baseball and soccer.
Hurling has two teams of about 15 players each racing up and down the field as they attempt to score points by hitting the ball into a soccer-type goal (three points) or through a set of uprights set on top of the goal (one point).
“Spectators can expect to see an exciting, fast-paced game with continuous action, played by well-conditioned and skillful amateur athletes,” Carroll said.
During the intermission, club members will conduct a clinic and demonstrations during which people will have a chance to hit the baseball-sized leather ball (sliotar) with one of the wooden playing sticks (hurleys).
The game is one of the many aspects of Irish heritage the cultural center aims to keep alive in Minnesota.
Carroll said the sport eventually “died out” as immigrants assimilated into American culture.
“The children of each new generation were one step further removed from their Irish roots, which made it progressively harder to maintain and perpetuate traditional Irish customs and practices – and sports,” he said.
Rosemount seems like the perfect place to revive the game since the city has embraced its Irish heritage both in its artifices and the high proportion of residents who are of Irish descent.
In Brief
For more information about other Rosemount Leprechaun Days events, see the schedule, or go online at RosemountEvents.com.
For more information about the Irish Heritage Cultural Center, go online at www.mnirish.org. For more information about the hurling club, go online at http://twincities.northamerican.gaa.ie. For more information about the Brian Boru Irish Pipe Band, go online at www.brianborupipeband.com.
Tad Johnson is at editor.thisweek@ecm-inc.com.
