Day 1: Kilkenny (Hurling)

After lunch, Tommy led us on a short and leisurely (neither) stroll (hike) to a hurling field (pitch?).  There we were introduced to the Irish sport of hurling. This is similar to lacrosse or field hockey, in that you are trying to move a ball around on a field with a stick. 

We learned some basic moves and then had a challenge to demonstrate our proficiency in those moves. The first move was to use the bat (“hurley”) to get the ball (“slioter” pronounced “slitter”) off the ground and into our hands. As you can see from the video, Russell was a machine, but he wasn't good enough to overcome my incompetence. 

The final challenge was to shoot on the goal (with a goalie who wasn't cutting us much slack).  Russell made two impressive shots (for his only two attempts) and carried our team to second place with zero help from me.  

After the challenges, most of the people played a short game just for fun. I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and named myself official photographer.Read more