The phrase “uniquely Irish” can defiantly be equated to the GAA as the All Ireland finals have taken place over the past few weeks at varying levels. Yesterday’s senior All Ireland hurling final between Cork and Tipperary took place in front of 82,300 in Croke Park.
It is incredible that those two sides had not met in a senior All Ireland hurling final until yesterday afternoon, even though both sides have won multiple titles between them.
Cork will have to wait until 2026 to add another title since there last win in 2005. Tipperary last won in 2019 under Liam Sheedy and Liam Cahill added his name to the manger roll of honour. It is amazing to watch hurling and be continuously surprised by the quality of the skill on show.
It is so often asked of sports men and women to rank the sports events they would most like to attend in the future and almost all will straight head for the NFL in the USA, the Ryder Cup in golf, the World Cup Final in football.
One feels that an All-Ireland Hurling Final might just rank up there as one of the unheralded and lesser spoken events that people would marvel at if it was given a platform on a global stage on a regular basis.
Watching as a neutral it is always enjoyable to sit down and watch the “small ball” game on any day at club or county level. In particular of course on days like yesterday where the All Ireland is being contested it goes into overdrive. The scramble for tickets is a sight to behold and almost always those who look for a ticket get one.
As I mentioned at the start of this, hurling is the fastest field sport in the world and can wow everybody and anyone and is uniquely Irish and for that fact we can be so proud.
Both sides yesterday put on a show of point taking and goal scoring and even though you have to have a loser as you do in any sport, the quality of the scoring yesterday was special.
Tipperary for their part turned around a 6 point deficit with Cork leading 1-16 (19) to 0-13 at half time to then come out in the second half and out score Cork by 2-14 (20) to 0-02 in the second half. Winning 3-27(36) to 1-18(21).
Hurling and Football are both Irish and you were banned if you played rugby or football and you could not play other sports under a ban which came to an end in 1971. Watching the games at club level or intercounty level is still a special occasion. Watching the scramble for tickets is good fun too, listening to stories of previous games and in some cases watching moments being re-created is also a part of the build up to All Ireland finals.
Yesterday saw Cork and Tipperary do battle in the All Ireland Hurling final and next Sunday will see Kerry and Donegal face off in the Football decider in front of another packed house.
For years in the early part of the 20th century and in particular during the years 1916 to 1921, these games were forbidden but so much has changed in the 141 years since the GAA’s creation and people can enjoy an incredible spectacle again next weekend as they did yesterday in what can really be called a “uniquely Irish” occasion…..