Monday 28 May 2018

GAA

In November 1884 the Gaelic Athletic Association was founded in Ireland. A country that was at that time still part of the United Kingdom. Its main focuses were on Irish sports, but music, dance and language are also high up on the list. The sports they champion are Gaelic Football, Hurling and Camogie. 

All the sports are played on a strictly amateur level, although the better players can get some advertisement money and/or sponsorships. Other than that: no pay! However, some of the football players do cross over to rugby, where they can go professional. 

Last Saturday I went to a football game in Newry. We could have seen both the games on that evening, but we left after the first one, which featured the under 20's. It was still great fun to watch though. If you are ever at a game where you don't understand a lot, ask the person in front, chances are they do! So, that's what I did. I asked the man in front of me, about the scoring, about the teams and about several other things. 

Now, the term football is quite a strange term for the sport we watched: the only time the ball ever touched the feet was when they were doing a keepie-uppie while running and when they tried to get the ball either in the goal or through the posts over the goal. Other than that: it was carried in their hands!

The names on the scoreboard were in Gaelic, which got me a bit confused as well (like it confused Yamini). Aontroim is indeed Co Antrim, but An Dun is not an island off the coast of Ireland, but a county called Down, both in the province of Ulster (which contains all of Northern Ireland and some counties in the Republic). 

Anyway, the game was great fun to watch and even the scoring was quite easy: between the goal posts over the goal: 1 point. In the goal: 3 points. However, instead of adding them all up immediately, they went for how many times they scored a certain way of scoring. At the end of the match, the points are totalled and a winner declared. In this case it was County Down who got a total of 29 points (they had 5 goals and 14 points, photo was taken a bit earlier), whereas County Antrim got a total of 22 points (3 goals and 13 points).

11 comments:

  1. Hari OM
    There is an island called An Dun... but clearly not involved in the Gaelic Footie! Hurling is one of the four Irish games governed by the GAA... and has scoring that looks like this too, so that's my reasoning!!! The Gaelic Footie is the basis of what is known now as Aussie Rules Footie (used to only be Victorian Rules as only that state played the form) - in that they have to bounce the ball at least every 15 metres (five strides-ish) and canp pass it on by punching it to the receiver or kicking.

    Did you want' to know all that? Of course not, but it's fun stuff!!! YAM xx

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    1. Hurling does have the same type of scoring, but I have yet to see a match live! I have only ever watched them on telly. I would love to see a proper match one day though. It is so fast and furious.

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  2. Well, that video looked a little like a synchronized dance at the beginning.

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    1. It was a sort of huddle and then they broke it up. I was a bit late in filming it though, so it looks a bit strange. It wasn't even the video I wanted to post, but that was too large to post directly.

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  3. It looks like you are having a blast getting to know your new country!

    Keep Calm & Bark On!

    Murphy & Stanley

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    1. So far so good! The weather has been great, giving me all sorts of good looks at my new country and the job has been good as well.

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  4. Crikey Mara .... Do you have to know about all the sports before you can be truly roolly Irish?? Mum wants to know what hurling is. She could google it but she would rather read your version of it. Hurling in Australia is not a sport. Well ..... not that I know of but I'm quite good at it so Mum says.

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    1. I don't have to know about it all, but it does interest me (to a degree). And when I get the chance to see it for free, who am I to say no???

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  5. Oh my word will you need to learn to speak Gaelic?
    Hugs Madi and mom

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  6. So was it soccer they played which of course is different from our American Football? Anyway being at a live game is always a lot of fun.

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Any weighty (and not so weighty) comments are welcome!