The word today has to be hurling, in anticipation of the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Final next Sunday. When well played, with skill and pace, there is probably no field game in the world to compare with it. No wonder Queen Elizabeth could describe it as "wonderful".
She did so on a visit to Northern Ireland last June. GAA president Liam O'Neill was one of nine guests at her table in Belfast during the visit and she knocked him out of his standing/sitting by disclosing she was impressed by hurling
"I was privileged to sit at a table for lunch with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth of England last week. We had met before in Croke Park when she had visited (the Republic), and we touched the topic of hurling and she said yes, she saw it.
“She saw it on television on Sky. She said ‘I’m not quite sure how I got it’ but she said it was wonderful. She made a side-to-side motion with her head saying it was very fast and it was a wonderful game.”
Maybe hurling should henceforth be known as “the wonderful game”.
He wasn’t sure whether it was the Kilkenny- Offaly match or the Dublin-Wexford clash she watched on Sky Sports
I’ve seen the word hurling described as “a form of hockey played in Ireland”. Hilarious. Equivalent to comparing soccer to rugby. Besides, hockey was not yet a glint in its begetter’s eye when hurling was already as old as Methuselah.
The game is said to be older than recorded history in Ireland and is believed to have been brought here by the Celts over 2,000 years ago. There are references to it in the Brehon laws. Cúchulainn and Fionn Mac Cumhail are said to have played it and it is referred to in the 14th- century Statutes of Kilkenny. With the founding of the GAA in 1884 its rules were agreed.
The noun hurling has been defined as "the act of throwing, casting, especially with great force or strength" and is thought to be derived from the verb to hurl, which is rooted in the Middle English hurlen, similar to the low German hurreln to throw, to dash and Friesan hurreln to roar, to bluster.
The Oxford English Dictionary suggests all are from the Germanic base hurr "expressing rapid motion". A close relative is the word hurry. inaword@irishtimes.com
