From time to time we hear remarks about how sad it is that Gaelic football and hurling are not played more widely abroad. Indeed, you will get fairly general agreement that hurling, at its best, is one of the greatest of all field games and we have all taken pleasure in showing off to visiting friends from abroad by taking them to Croke Park or Thurles or Pairc Ui Chaoimh. Even though this feeling of isolation is widespread, there is, nevertheless, evidence that hurling has been played abroad in a vast variety of places for many years. We are therefore all indebted to Seamus J King, that great lover of hurling lore, for a recent publication which chronicles the story of hurling on many foreign fields. The 200-page volume The Clash of the Ash in Foreign Fields - Hurling Abroad* is beautifully presented on glossy paper with countless photographs from a great variety of places and times. In what is really a massive job of research, the author writes tellingly about hurling in many places and includes a section on results of matches played abroad as well as a lengthy bibliography which gives the lie to the idea that very few books have been written about the game.

This is not, however, the kind of book which can be read and appreciated at one sitting; rather it is one to have a cherished place on your shelves where it can be found easily whenever a fact or a score must be checked or an argument supported. The photographs alone provide hours of browsing. Not just old teams in funny clothes, although there are those aplenty, but some which put the game into historical and social perspective. The author also includes references to the beginnings of the game and its development including its near demise in the 19th century and its revival following the foundation of the GAA, under the guidance of Michael Cusack, in 1884.

He touches upon the fact that, as he puts it: "the Gaelic Athletic Association was no sooner founded than attempts were made to spread the gospel of hurling outside Ireland. There was a large Irish diaspora scattered about the world, nearby in the UK, across the Atlantic in the US and Canada, south of the equator in the Argentine and Australia and on the southern tip of Africa".

He points out that the first attempt involved what became known as The American Invasion in 1888 which resulted in the cancellation of the All-Ireland finals of that year as all the best hurlers and footballers in the country were in the United States.

Ironically the first visit of Irish players and athletes to the United States, although reasonably successful from a sporting point of view, was a financial disaster due to, of all things, a "split" between two rival athletics bodies in the US and a Presidential election campaign. If those "political" problems were fairly familiar to the visitors they were made even more at home by the fact the weather was also foul. The organisers even ran out of money and funds had to be borrowed to pay for the tickets home. Piled upon these problems was the fact that no fewer than 17 of Ireland's best athletes refused to return home.

Fortunately subsequent efforts were more successful and King is able to deal with the development of hurling in the UK (hurling and shinty in Scotland) and in the US, notably the big centres of Irish population in New York, Boston and Chicago.

The author believes that a number of matters are making the development of the game abroad very difficult. In many cases development depended on a constant flow of emigrants to countries abroad and the Celtic Tiger may have played a part in making things more difficult for the spread of the game by cutting down the number of young people going abroad to work.

There are also problems with the provision of equipment and playing facilities. Lack of television coverage may also mean that the game needs greater exposure in order to encourage young people to become interested.

Whatever the future holds for hurling abroad, Seamus J King will surely take heart from its present extraordinary popularity here.

*The Clash of the Ash in Foreign Fields - Hurling Abroad Seamus J King, Boherclough, Cashel, Co. Tipperary.