St. Patrick's Day at Croke Park

After the parade we headed over to see the GAA club finals at Croke Park.

It has taken a while for me to figure out both a) what the hubub is about Croke park (as a stadium, Aviva is much more beautiful and simple to get to) and b) the structure of the GAA and what it means to be the "club finals."

I will start with part b here.

Essentially the GAA consists of hurling and Gaelic Football. It is the sports extension of the "Gaelic revival" or late-nineteenth-century national revival of interest in the Irish language and Irish Gaelic culture (folklore, sports, music, dance, arts, etc.). Croke Park is devoted to these two Irish games. You can see on the below pictures that even the jumbo tron is in Irish.

As I've discussed before on this blog, hurling is "believed to be the world’s oldest field game. When the Celts came to Ireland as the last ice age was receding, they brought with them a unique culture, their own language, music, script and unique pastimes. One of these pastimes was a game now called hurling. It features in Irish folklore to illustrate the deeds of heroic mystical figures and it is chronicled as a distinct Irish pastime for at least 2,000 years."

Here's a bit about Gaelic Football: 

"Gaelic Football is a field game which has developed as a distinct game similar to the progression of Australian Rules. Gaelic Football is played on a pitch up to 145m long and 90m wide. The goalposts are the same shape as on a rugby pitch, with the crossbar lower than a rugby one and slightly higher than a soccer one.

The ball used in Gaelic Football is round, slightly smaller than a soccer ball. It can be carried in the hand for a distance of four steps and can be kicked or "hand-passed", a striking motion with the hand or fist. After every four steps the ball must be either bounced or "solo-ed", an action of dropping the ball onto the foot and kicking it back into the hand. You may not bounce the ball twice in a row. To score, you put the ball over the crossbar by foot or hand / fist for one point or under the crossbar and into the net by foot or the hand / fist in certain circumstances for a goal, the latter being the equivalent of three points. Each team consists of 15 players, lining out as per the diagram."

Here is a youtube video of the game. 

The games are played throughout the year. Between September and March, they are working out who is best among the clubs. Each county has many clubs that compete against each other (like Kilmacud Crokes). Today was the culmination of the club competition. Next the best players of the clubs get chosen to be on the teams that represent the counties. Those counties then compete against each other and culminate in a championship.

There isn't really a comparative level of competition in the U.S. These are men aged 25-35 and are amateurs, and the sports are not played internationally.

Here are our seats for the Galic Football.

Naomh Brid is St. Bridgets in Irish

And now, part a. Croke Park is important to the Irish because of its involvement and symbolism in Irish freedom and nationalization. 

 

In 1913, Croke Park had only two stands on what is now known as the Hogan stand side and grassy banks all round. In 1917, the rubble from the Easter Rising in 1916 was used to construct a grassy hill on the railway end of Croke Park to afford patrons a better view of the pitch, which hosted all major Gaelic football and hurling matches in the latter stages of the All-Ireland championships. This terrace is known as Hill 16. 

During the Irish War of Independence on 21 November 1920, Croke Park was the scene of a massacre by teh Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). The Police, supported by the British Auxiliary Division entered the ground, shooting indiscriminately into the crowd, killing or fatally wounding 14 during a Dublin-Tipperary Gaelic football match. The dead included 13 spectators and Tipperary's captain, Michael Hogan.