Since when is it a crime to have a hurley?

JANUARY 6 has always been a family day for us, and this year several clan members took advantage of the good weather that afternoon for a walk along the seafront of my home town of Greystones in Co Wicklow.

What a picture of contented respectability we made as we walked three abreast: my retired father, my schoolteacher uncle and I.

Evidently not respectable enough for the local Garda Síochána though as one of its ranks drove by, stopped and alighted from his car, eyed us suspiciously and demanded to know our purpose.

The problem, it seemed, was that in my hand I held a hurley and the garda could not accept that a citizen would be using such an implement for anything as innocent as, say, hurling.

I have travelled four continents hurley in hand and, although on occasion the object of considerable curiosity, it is only in my home town that I have been suspected of using it for some nefarious purpose.

While I’m aware this is an election year and Justice Minister Michael McDowell is under pressure regarding crime figures, surely even he won’t proscribe the carrying of hurleys?

Are our gardaí so far removed from the communities they serve that they are unaware of positive activities such as the boys in Greystones who recently proved themselves at all levels of underage hurling?

Would I have been stopped if I was carrying a cricket bat?

Odhrán Ó Súilleabháin

4 Marina Walk

Maypark

Waterford