Celebrating the pure joy of schools’ matches
That elemental pleasure of swinging a piece of timber at a round ball and making that ball move. And then doing it again and again.
And then as days give to months, and months to years, trying to learn how to master the ball with the stick. The infinite pursuit of the unattainable. The union of the physical act and the pull of competition explains much of the elemental pleasure that sits at the very centre of camogie and of hurling. And it is a pleasure that was on vivid display in Croke Park in the middle of this week at the Cumann na mBunscol finals.
It was a privilege to watch these matches. It is not too much to say that they epitomise the very best of the GAA. To say that is not to set what happens in schools’ matches in opposition to other aspects of the Association’s endeavours, instead it is to celebrate its pure joy.
The best thing about Croke Park during the Cumann na mBunscol finals is the fact that the pitch is nearly full and the stands nearly empty.
Three games run simultaneously from early morning until after lunch. Shortly after 11am on a Tuesday there is a camogie match and two hurling matches in full swing. The competing schools are from across Dublin, uniting wealthy suburbs with the inner-city and with areas who do not traditionally see their sons and daughters play in Croke Park on big days.
In the camogie match, the girls are a microcosm of the modern ethnic composition of Dublin’s classrooms.
The daughters of emigrants swing timber alongside girls whose parents are local — there is no distinction. They are just kids playing a great game with their friends and representing their school. The unity in that, at least, is something wonderful.
Watching their schoolmates play, there are other kids up on the seats roaring support and clapping. And there is something glorious about the sound they make when one of their friends scores a goal: It is that high-pitched, endless scream of children filled with fun.
Cumann na mBunscol has as its philosophy the promotion of Gaelic games in an atmosphere of fun and enjoyment. Decades of endeavour mean it is now active in almost 3,000 schools across the country with some 100,000 boys and girls participating in its activities.
It is primarily about football, hurling and camogie, but it also promotoes handball, rounders and athletics, among other activities.
Indeed, the general commitment of teachers (and some parents) is a testament to the enduring ethos of volunteerism that is the bedrock of giving children a chance to express themselves in ways that extend beyond the classroom. The confidence that this has brought to so many lives is immeasurable but should not be taken for granted.
There is a lot of easy talk about how different life now is for children and there can be no denying that modern technology has changed how children live in such ways that there are now things that are indeed profoundly different. Screen culture is all-pervasive and its lure is insistent and seemingly inevitable.
But there is also an awful lot that is essentially the same. The sheer joy of schoolchildren competing ferociously to win a match (in these instances hurling and camogie) is something transcendent, something that is familiar to all, something that is a shared experience across generations, something recognisable from everybody’s past.
Part of what is recognisable is the experience of defeat.
This is a day that is magical to behold, a day which every child who gets to play in Croke Park will surely carry as a life memory, but for some there will also always be a tinge of disappointment.
This week some brilliant hurlers left the field defeated, some in floods of tears.
There is a cruelty to that. The sweetness of the day, of getting to play on such a field, can also be run through with a little bitterness.
In time — in some cases almost immediately, but not so swiftly in others — the sense of disappointment at a loss will hopefully be completely overwhelmed by the fact of getting to play in Croke Park and in getting the day out of school.
And there is also, of course, the ecstasy of victory for those who end up on the right side of the result. The pile-up of young hurlers that greets the end of a brilliant hurling match is a riot of celebration.
It is easy to lose yourself in that moment — it is easy, too, to see in that moment only a happiness that stretches out into a blue sky and to imagine a future filled with hope and promise.
There is much cynicism in sport, much that is corrupt and violent and even nasty.
Even children’s sport is occasionally stained by this cynicism on occasion. But mostly it creates moments of pure bliss for so many lives.
And if it is only natural that you should wish to be 11 again and to be in a position to run and hit a ball with a stick around the grass of Croke Park — or any other grass — then it is also true that the next best thing is to be there to watch others doing it instead. And there it is — a ball and a stick and some grass and a lot of children playing away.
