A chara, – In his letter of August 8th, Ned Monaghan, with the inherent self-assuredness endowed by the county of his birth, Cork, proclaims that hurling is played with a hurley, thereby reopening a can of worms.
In his excellent history The Hurlers, which tells the story of the first All-Ireland championship and the making of modern hurling, Prof Paul Rouse appears to offer evidence contrary to Mr Monaghan’s view.
Prof Rouse describes early meetings of the newly formed Dublin Hurling Club in 1883 to draw up rules for hurling and to find a suitable venue for play. The committee included among its members Michael Cusack, Dr Hugh Auchinleck and Frank A Potterton.
In 1882, Potterton had a letter published in The Irish Times lamenting the disappearance of hurling from public life, and it was he who had described hurling as “a game played with a kind of a bat called a ‘hurl’, made of well-seasoned, long-grained ash”.
It would seem, therefore, that the use of the word hurl as a noun has been around for quite some time.
Notwithstanding this however, there seems to be a geographical bias for usage of hurl or hurley. Munster hurlers seem to favour playing with a hurley, while in the east of the country we play with a hurl.
Surely we can recognise that both names are valid and are in common use in different parts of Ireland. – Is mise,
JOHN KELLY,
Bennekerry,
Co Carlow.
Sir, – No dispute about this one: J Hurl played in goals for Antrim against Jack Lynch, Christy Ring and the rest of the Cork team in the 1943 All-Ireland hurling final. – Yours, etc,
JOE CARROLL,
Dundalk,
Co Louth.
Sir, – Really, who gives a puck whether or not a hurl is a noun or a verb. – Yours, etc,
JOHN SCANNELL,
Clonskeagh,
Dublin 14.
Sir, – Would receiving a “lick of a hurl” make one a “hurlee”? – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL
GOODWIN,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Perhaps if my ancestors had come to Ireland earlier and in greater numbers, the hurl versus hurley debate would be irrelevant. It would be a hurlski. – Yours, etc,
PAVEL
MARIANSKI,
Dungarvan,
Co Waterford.
Sir, – While we’re at it, could someone tell a certain RTÉ commentator that, no matter how unique a sport it is, hurling is nevertheless still subject to the laws of physics, like all other sports, and that players cannot therefore score points from “impossible angles”? – Yours, etc,
PHILIP
CUMMINGS,
Toome,
Co Antrim