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Show posts MenuQuote23 October 2013
GALWAY hurling circles have been left reeling following the tragic death of a young inter-county player tonight.
Niall Donoghue (22) who played for Kilbeacanty died suddenly this evening at around 7pm.
The young hurler had been an integral part of the Galway hurling team and played in the All-Ireland final last year. He had also helped the county secure glory in the 2011 Under 21's All-Ireland.
Pat Kearney, Galway Hurling Board Secretary said the entire community was devastated by the tragic death.
Mr Kearney, who was a fellow clubman of the late Niall Donoghue at Kilbeacanty, said the thoughts and prayers of the entire board and club went out to Niall's family and community.
"He was a very talented hurler who had a promising future ahead of him," he said.
The young hurler, who played right wing back for the Galway senior team would have celebrated his 23rd birthday on Friday.
QuoteTHE PRESENT HURLING REGION
If one looks at the present hurling core region, it is remarkably compact. It also exhibits striking continuity with the earlier 'iomán' region. (Fig. 3) The hurling heartland is focused on the three counties of Cork, Tipperary and Kilkenny, with a supporting cast of adjacent counties – Limerick, Clare, Galway, Offaly, Laois, Waterford and Wexford. In the hurling core, the game is king, and very closely stitched into the fabric of the community. Describing the situation in Rathnure, Billy Rackard claimed that in the absence of hurling, 'the parish would commit suicide, if a parish could commit suicide!' The boundaries of the hurling region are surprisingly well-defined.
To the north, the midland bogs act, as in a way they have done throughout history, as a buffer zone, resolutely impervious to the spread of cultural influences from further south. The western edge of the hurling zone can be traced over a long distance. In County Galway, for example, its boundaries run along a line from Ballinasloe to the city; north of this line is the Tuam-Dunmore area, and west of it is Connemara, both footballing territories. In County Clare, the boundary runs from Tubber on the Galway border through Corofin and Kilmaley to Labasheeda on the Shannon estuary. Last summer, the tremendous achievement of Clare in winning a Munster football championship was most thoroughly relished in the footballing bastion of west Clare, from Kilkee and Doonbeg to Milltown Malbay. One could easily establish this pattern by looking at the thickening density of the forest of flags as one drove from east to west in August.
Across the Shannon in Limerick, the football-hurling divide runs clearly along the scarp dividing hilly west Limerick from the lush limestone lowlands of east Limerick. West of this is an enclave of hurling parishes in the footballing kingdom of Kerry in the area north of Tralee, in Ardfert, Bally heigue, Causeway and Ballyduff. From Limerick, the hurling boundary loops through County Cork from Mallow to the city and then to the coast at Cloyne – home to the maestro Christy Ring, who famously expressed his strategy for promoting the game in Cork – by stabbing a knife through every football found east of that line. Outside this core region, there are only the hurling enclaves in the Glens of Antrim and on the tip of the Ards peninsula, where the clubs of Ballycran, Ballygalget and Portaferry backbone Down's hurling revival.
The interesting question then is how these boundaries formed. In almost every case, that boundary divides big farm and small farm areas and marks the transition from fertile, drift-covered limestone lowland to hillier, hungrier, wetter shales, flagstones, grits and granites. In County Galway, for example, hurling has not put down roots in the bony granite outcrops of Connemara, and in Clare the poorly drained flagstone deposits are equally inhospitable. If ash is emblematic of hurling areas, the rush is the distinctive symbol of football territory.