Shinty

Started by Lamh Dhearg Alba, September 21, 2007, 02:34:41 PM

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highking

Still with the Shinty connection. Has anyone heard the senior and U21 Ireland squads to take part in the internationals this year? They are being picked from the Ring & Rackard Cup counties and panels are limited to 17.

the colonel

i no shane mcnaughton and arron fraffin from cushendall are training with the under 21 panel. think neil mcmanus declined due to involvement in senior championship but now we are out he may play
the difference between success and failure is energy

Rossfan

I understand these games will be live on BBC Scotland ( in November ??)
Davy's given us a dream to cling to
We're going to bring home the SAM

Lamh Dhearg Alba

Quote from: Rossfan on September 25, 2007, 08:29:30 PM
I understand these games will be live on BBC Scotland ( in November ??)

The games are the weekend of October 13th/14th at An Aird in Fort William. Its the same time as the Mod (annual Gaelic festival) takes place in Fort William so should be a wee extra boost for the crowd from that and the pubs should also be very lively. Hadnt heard if the games were live on tv or not Rossfan, will try and confirm that.

tayto

 how many shinty clubs are there roughly?

ludermor

i was at a stag party in Fort Augustus over the summer and it was mad seeing all the young wan with the camans (sp?)
the stags nephew was coming to ireland to play in some tournament in rathoath for the scotland u 18s around the same time ( start of july)

Rossfan

Quote from: Lamh Dhearg Alba on September 25, 2007, 11:54:59 PM
Quote from: Rossfan on September 25, 2007, 08:29:30 PM
I understand these games will be live on BBC Scotland ( in November ??)

The games are the weekend of October 13th/14th at An Aird in Fort William. Its the same time as the Mod (annual Gaelic festival) takes place in Fort William so should be a wee extra boost for the crowd from that and the pubs should also be very lively. Hadnt heard if the games were live on tv or not Rossfan, will try and confirm that.
I'm sure I heard the lassie on BBC Scotland say at the end of the Cup Final programmes that there was live TV coverage on BBC.
Davy's given us a dream to cling to
We're going to bring home the SAM

Lamh Dhearg Alba

Quote from: Rossfan on September 26, 2007, 07:54:19 PM
I'm sure I heard the lassie on BBC Scotland say at the end of the Cup Final programmes that there was live TV coverage on BBC.

Ah that will be right then. Thats good, they only had highlights at some crazy hour of the night last year. As for the question about shinty clubs Id say there are about 40 odd....league tables here http://www.shinty.com/leagues.htm although obviously there are quite a few reserve teams in there.

Just out of interest what would people say the general standard is of the team Ireland has picked for this game over the last few years?? I read a piece somewhere saying the lads that were picked were generally class players who suffer from being from counties who cant compete with the best. My own suspicion was though that if Ireland picked a team from Kilkenny/Cork/Limerick etc that they would hammer the select side from the weaker counties...would that be right?

tayto

#23
Yes, yes it would be right to say that. There's some good players alright but not of the class that you'd get from a Kilkenny-Cork-Galway-Tipp etc selection.

Thanks for the link, I'll check it tomorrow.

40 clubs, So whats the approximate playing population? I must make a trip over to Allba for a match sometime. The compromise rules leave me a bit confused as to what Shinty is actually like, I'd be very interested to see it in full swing. Whats a good time to catch a match Lamh Dhearg? It's played on a club basis so? feck, i dont even know if there's provinces in Scotland, flaunting me ignorace wha!

Lamh Dhearg Alba

Quote from: tayto on September 27, 2007, 01:21:35 AM
Yes, yes it would be right to say that. There's some good players alright but not of the class that you'd get from a Kilkenny-Cork-Galway-Tipp etc selection.

40 clubs, So whats the approximate playing population? I must make a trip over to Allba for a match sometime. The compromise rules leave me a bit confused as to what Shinty is actually like, I'd be very interested to see it in full swing. Whats a good time to catch a match Lamh Dhearg? It's played on a club basis so? feck, i dont even know if there's provinces in Scotland, flaunting me ignorace wha!

Cheers, thats what I thought. As for the shinty setup its bases on clubs, although Scotland has regions there is no equivalent of the county/provinicial setup in Ireland. Shinty has traditionally been organised on a North/South basis....the South being Argyll (basically the West Highlands up to Glencoe) and the few Lowland clubs, and the North being the rest of the Highlands bar Argyll. Clubs from the north and south traditionally play a different formation on the field. Its only 10 years since a 'national' premier league was formed and below that the rest of the leagues are still north and south. There is a North - South select match every year but there isnt really too much niggle and isnt comparable to the big club matches, its probably similar enough to the Railway Cup. The North pretty much win every year anyway, far more strength in depth in the north.
As for a good time to catch a game the season now runs from March - October (although it overruns every year). It was always August-June but they finally changed to 'summer shinty' 3 years ago. If you want to catch a game then one of the big finals is a good idea or else a derby like Kingussie - Newtonmore, the Old Firm of shinty ;D

Or if you cant be bothered coming over there are highlights on here http://www.bounci.tv/#  then click on Bounc See in the left column.

tayto

Thanks for the info. Whats the historical background? I read the history of hurling years ago and apparently what we have now is what used to be summer hurling, winter hurling which is more or less gone, sounded more like shinty, I cant remember the exact details of the chapter, i must find the book again and get back to you. Not hard to see how golf derived in Scotland, stick + Goal not unlike ice hockey as well???

Lamh Dhearg Alba

Quote from: tayto on September 27, 2007, 03:56:50 PM
Thanks for the info. Whats the historical background? I read the history of hurling years ago and apparently what we have now is what used to be summer hurling, winter hurling which is more or less gone, sounded more like shinty, I cant remember the exact details of the chapter, i must find the book again and get back to you. Not hard to see how golf derived in Scotland, stick + Goal not unlike ice hockey as well???

Yeah the histories Ive read on shinty and hurling suggest modern day shinty is more like the old winter hurling played in Ireland. Certainly in the Highlands they would play whenever but THE big game was at New Year when the men of the parishes would play a huge (up to 200 peopleP :o) shinty match and try drive the ball from one end of the 'playing field' to the other. As well as Camanachd the other Scots Gaelic word for Shinty is Iomain, to drive.
Some of the books also suggest winter hurling was tradiotionally the prevalent stick sport in the North of Ireland and was called something like camanacht, suggestion was the modern day hurling was something of an import to that part of Ireland. The book 'Camanachd' by Roger Hutchinson has a lot about the roots of both games if youre interested.
With ice-hockey there is speculation that it was Scottish Gaels who went over who started ice hockey but I know other sports also claim credit. Certainly evidence though of Scots playing shinty on ice in Canada and another fascinating fact is that Canadians still call an informal game of ice hockey or a game between kids on the street as a game of "shinny".

An another interesting fact is that a number of football clubs were originally shinty teams...believe it or not Nottingham Forest were originally a shinty team made of exiled Scottish Gaels ;D

Rossfan

I was thumbing through some book one time and it referred to a game called "commons" being played in the Northern half of Ireland in the 17 and 1800s.
I suspect the increased population and need to grow potatoes left little or no spare ground leading to this game dying out ??? In the Southern half of the Country there was better land and broader acres plus the landlords encouraged hurling at one time ( to stop lads getting up to other things?) so it remained reasonably strong till the GAA came to the rescue.
Davy's given us a dream to cling to
We're going to bring home the SAM

tayto

Quote from: Lamh Dhearg Alba on September 28, 2007, 11:34:18 AM
Yeah the histories Ive read on shinty and hurling suggest modern day shinty is more like the old winter hurling played in Ireland. Certainly in the Highlands they would play whenever but THE big game was at New Year when the men of the parishes would play a huge (up to 200 peopleP :o) shinty match and try drive the ball from one end of the 'playing field' to the other. As well as Camanachd the other Scots Gaelic word for Shinty is Iomain, to drive.

Jaze, the connections between Gaelic Ireland and Scotland really were very close, tiomáin = drive : Iomáint = Hurling

scalder

Connections between Gaelic Ireland and Gaelic Scotland were very, very close the lads from Uladh set up a kingdom over their and in time they overtook the Picts as the leading group. We were so close that "Scots" to the Romans were in fact the Irish. The connections were only really severed in the wake of the plantation.