Front page of todays Wall Street Journal

[FL/MAYO]

This is on the front page of todays WSJ. It was quiet a shock to see a topic on the GAA on the front page of this business paper.


PAGE ONE 
 

Hurling in America
Has a Problem --
Too Few Irishmen
The Lure of the Old Sod
And Immigration Issues
Make for a Player Shortage
By CONOR DOUGHERTY
July 26, 2007; Page A1

For five years straight, the Clan Na nGael sports club in Atlanta sent a team to the North American Hurling Championships. That ended a year ago: Try as it did, Clan Na nGael could muster only 12 players, and it takes at least 13 to make a team.

"We didn't play any competitive games last year," says Jim Whooley, vice chairman of Clan Na nGael. "We just played scrimmage games among ourselves, six on six and five on five."

Hurling -- a centuries-old sport that has elements of field hockey and lacrosse -- has an immigration problem. With the Irish economy booming and the U.S. tightening borders, Irish expatriates are returning home and fewer newcomers are taking their place.


The New York board of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) has lost four of its eight hurling teams in the past three years. In Boston, the Wexford Hurling Club is worried it will soon lose one of its two teams. And ever since the San Jose, Calif., team folded a few years ago, Northern California's two remaining clubs have played each other, and only each other. They settle the local "championship" with a best-of-five competition. Hurling "is becoming extinct," says Tom Flynn, an Irish immigrant who started with a New Jersey team in 1954 and remains involved with the club's management.

To keep going, hurling teams enlist Irish students who come to America for the summer. Hoping to build a new generation of hurlers, they also are setting up youth leagues. And, as part of a recruiting push, they are trying to interest Americans in the sport. "American-born players must become the backbone of our clubs in the long term if the games are to survive out here," says Eamonn Gormley, a San Francisco Web-site developer and GAA member who has been trying to get hurling teams started on college campuses in Northern California.

Turning Americans on to hurling will be tough. To many Americans, hurling is just a slang term for vomiting. Once they learn that it's a sport, they often confuse it with curling, the winter Olympic sport played with brooms.

Grit and Finesse

Perhaps the greatest obstacle is that hurling -- which requires the endurance of soccer, the grit of football and the finesse of hacky sack -- is hard to play. Americans who try the sport quickly find themselves outclassed by Irishmen who have been playing since they were toddlers.

GAELIC SPORT



See three video clips on the centuries-old sport of hurling:
• What Is Hurling?
• Hurling Skills
• Hurling Rules
Source: Gaelic Athletic AssociationA hurling team has 13 or 15 players armed with wooden paddles called hurleys. Players tussle with another team over a baseball-size sphere called a siothar. There are goals at either end of the field, and teams score three points each time the siothar (pronounced "slit-ar") makes it in. A siothar that flies through uprights above the goal scores one point.

The hardest part of the game is learning to handle the hurley, which is like an extended arm, for the 60 minutes of a match. Hurlers can't throw the siothar, and they can carry it in their hands for only a few steps. So players pass the ball with a combination of open-palm slaps, kicks and -- for extra-long shots -- by tossing the siothar in the air and striking it downfield with the hurley.

When the siothar is balanced on top of the hurley, a player can run for as many steps as he likes. But that isn't easy with the opposing team throwing body checks and slashing at the siothar as if they were in a sword fight.

Brian Whitlow, an American graduate student in San Francisco, tried out for a hurling team two years ago after seeing the sport on television. It didn't go well: In practices, he rarely got the ball, and when he did he never made it more than a few steps before the ball was knocked away. After playing in one match, he was benched. He quit halfway through the season.

Mr. Whitlow now has a new strategy: With help from Mr. Gormley, he has organized a club for American players. "The idea is to get an opportunity to play in a match and kind of learn as we go," he says.

Irish games have been played in the U.S. for as long as there have been Irish immigrants. In the summer, Irish expats flock to places like Gaelic Park in New York's Bronx borough, where they cheer from the bleachers and drink beer or Magners cider over ice. The New York board of the Gaelic Athletic Association was formed in 1914, and, by the club's reckoning, it has had a hurling team ever since.

For all that time, the size and strength of U.S.-based hurling teams have been tied informally to U.S. immigration policy and the strength of the Irish economy. Until recently, the New York GAA says, its toughest recruiting period was the late 1960s and early '70s. The Immigration Act of 1965 had reduced the flow of Irish immigration.

Irish Economy

Today, there are two problems: The strong Irish economy is keeping people from emigrating or drawing them back home, while U.S. immigration laws are making life tougher for Irish who are in the U.S. illegally. Ireland's gross domestic product has grown an average of 7.2% annually for the past decade, according to the International Monetary Fund, more than twice the rate of the U.S.

There were 128,000 Irish-born residents of the U.S. in 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, down from 156,000 in 2000. In 1980, there had been about 290,000.

The decline has accelerated in recent years as post-9/11 immigration reforms -- particularly a New York program to verify Social Security numbers for driver's licenses -- have made it tougher for illegal immigrants to live normal lives.

Alan Gleeson, a 28-year-old electrician who hurled in New York until last year, recently returned to County Offaly, in part because his illegal status was making it harder to live in the U.S. "You couldn't get a driver's license, so you were limited to where you could work," he says.

At its height in the 1980s, the New York board of the GAA had about 10 hurling teams. Today there are just four: Offaly, Galway, Tipperary and New Jersey/Kilkenny.

Worries Over Decline

The decline worries John Phelan. A retired accountant, he left Ireland 50 years ago and has been playing or watching hurling at Gaelic Park ever since. The league, he says, is as small as it can be: "If it goes below four, we're a dead duck."

On a recent afternoon, Mr. Phelan and two Irish friends chatted while watching New Jersey/Kilkenny face off against Galway. Before the game, Galway's manager gave his team a profanity-filled speech in which he encouraged his players to "use the timber." (Translation: Don't be gentle with the hurley.)

It would take more than a pep talk. Over the next hour, hurlers from New Jersey/Kilkenny sent shot after shot through the uprights above the goal. Mr. Flynn, the former player who has been involved with the team since the '50s, is confident it will win its third straight championship this year, but he isn't sure how much further the team can go. "The way it's going now," he says, "we will be lucky to get two more years out of hurling in New York."

Write to Conor Dougherty at conor.dougherty@wsj.com

[Lecale2]

Good article for yanks. Surprised it made the front page.

[mannix]

Its tough for the old timers watching the player pool dwindle never to grow again.Mayo had 2 teams in the ny league about 5 years back, now they scrape enough maybe for one.Hurling is in bigger trouble because it is based in far fewer counties and if a lad from tipp or kilkenny is not good enough to be playing he will play football with a junior side where he will get a game.
The publicans over there in woodlawn and woodside are taking a big hit too, not as many young fellas wanderind around with dollars to waste.

[Rossfan]

Why didnt all those Irish emigrants for the last 120 years teach their children to play Gaelic Games.
They could have a player pool of millions by this stage.

[inisceithleann]

Why didnt all those Irish emigrants for the last 120 years teach their children to play Gaelic Games.
They could have a player pool of millions by this stage.

agree Rossfan, the american irish claim to so proud of their irish heritage, playing irish native sports is a great way of actually embracing their irishness without being called plastic paddys. I know the GAA do a lot to promote gaelic games state side but i suppose it's hard when the 4 big american sports is what kids of irish origin are exposed to at school. I think birmingham, england is a good example that you can get kids without irish links playing gaelic games and absolutely loving it. maybe this should be done more in the US.

[FL/MAYO]

A lot of Irish- American kids do play football but lose interest as they get older. It is easier for an American kid to play football due to their exposure to basketball and soccer, hurling is another story as it is a very hard game to pick up if you have not grown up with a hurl in your hand. I believe there is a hurling team in Milwaukee that consists of entirely American born players and most of their players have little or no connection to Ireland. I wonder what is the reason for the success  in Milwaukee? It might be worth it for the North American Board to put time into discovering the reason for Milwaukees success.

[Gnevin]

http://www.hurling.net/ shows what can be done with the right structures  ie Americans playing americans at the right level .

[heganboy]

I saw this article and couldn't believe it...
Showed everyone in work.

[magickingdom]

as someone whose parents met and married in ny i well remember going to gaelic park many sundays over the years and the place packed. although its great that no one needs to emigrate anymore im saddened that the irish american connection is slowly been lost. surely the government could work out some kind of visa program with the us gov whereby a few thousand irish/us could get visa every year to move in either direction. i know pleanty irish that would like to live in the states and there are plenty americans that would love to come to ireland. most would probably move home again after a few years but some would stay and the connection would remain strong to everyones benifit..

[FL/MAYO]

I spent a lot of time playing in Gaelic Park myself many years ago. The problem with the GAA in America is that many of the clubs are very clickish and are wary of outsiders; these outsiders can even be Irish lads from other parts of the country. So you can imagine the reception that an American might get if he tried to get involved in Gaelic sports. Probably the reason the Milwaukee club is successful is due to fact that they do not have a problem with the clickiness. I remember bars in New York where if you were not from a certain village or town you would not be made welcome, this was true with many of the clubs there as well. The GAA in the big cities need to broaden their horizons or they will die. Immigration from Ireland thankfully seems to be a thing of the past and the clubs in the U.S need to realize this or they will all become just social clubs.

[Blacksheep]

Interesting article if you ask me we can only spread hurling by starting at the bottom. Very young kids.

[Shamrock Shore]

My auld pair met in NY in 56 or so - married in 59 and the elder brother Shores were born in the US in early 61 and late 62.

Fambly moved back to the auld sod in 64 due to 'farm' issues and I popped up 2 years later.

AND I THANK GOD cos all my US cousins, bar one or two, (I have a good few) are nuts and had my parents stayed in the US, as they could have, I'd be nuts as well.

Sted I am a quiet Longford supporter living in Dublin with a family and my own business.

Cheers to reverse emigration.

[Tyrones own]

I was going to say it was a slow day in the Market but it wasn't.

[joemamas]

I think as much as anything, it is a function of;

A) children of Irish and Irish american having exposure to numerous other sports, which get significant tv time, i.e. baseball, basketball, american football, hockey, etc.

b) the next generation of irish american kids, are products of parents who have moved out of irish strongholds such as the Bronx and Queens and are thus less likely to go to the likes of a gaelic park as often as their parents did.

It is sad to see, as gaelic park in particular served as not only a social outlet for new immigrants, it was also directly and indiretly responsible for placing thousands in jobs during the eighties and nineties.

The GAA in New York have the ability to change things around by mandating that each senior team , include at least five players who have come through the minor ranks, .i.e are american born, if this does not happen soon, the football will go down the same path as the hurling.

[Colonel Cool]

A good article alright but why was it on the front page? Are you sure you didn't have the paper back to front?