Today we went to the nearby town of Castlebar to watch a
Hurling game and a Gaelic football match.
Honestly, this morning I did not want to get out of
bed, there has been a bout of flew
running through the class and apparently it is now my turn.
None the less, I did manage to find my way onto the bus and
before long we were at the stadium.
The first match to be played was a Hurling game.
Hurling, for those of you who don’t know, is kind of a cross
between Lacross, baseball and soccer in which the team uses wooden paddles to
hit a baseball sided ball into a goal or through a set of uprights. Here is a video for reference.
The match we got to see was about equivalent to a division 3
college. I found it entertaining, but I
never really got into it.
As the game of Hurling drew to an end more and more people
started showing up. It was clear that
the Gaelic football match was the main event of the day.
Gaelic football is a cross between rugbee and soccer played
with a round ball. Each player can only
take a certain number of steps with the ball before he/she mist kick it or
dribble it. The points are scored in a
similar fashion to Hurling, and here is a video for reference.
The stadium filled pretty well for this match, and it did get
significantly more exciting. The thing
that stood out to me the most from this game however, happened right at the
end. After the final bell rang, fans
started rushing onto the field. At first
I thought that it was some super excited fans going a little crazy, but I soon
realized that it was a normal thing. The
fans could go up to the players and get pictures/autographs, and there was no security
or people stopping them.
This was so foreign to me because in the US fans are rarely
allowed on the court/field. It was a
nice change of pace to feel this openness.
Have a wonderful day,
Willie
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