Paul Rouse: 'This game of hurling, with the Celtic blood hot. What can equal it?'
A player takes a free shot from the 21-yard line during a game of hurling at New York's Croke Park around 1955. Picture: Three Lions/Getty Images
All around the world today, Irish people are playing hurling. Some might just be hitting a ball against a wall on their own, while others will be playing in formally organised matches that are both part of everything that goes with a modern calendar of organised sport and also a celebration of Irish identity.
In the modern world, there is little enough that truly distinguishes Irish culture from the culture of whole swathes of the rest of the world. The triumph of the internet means an increasingly homogenised culture where across the world there is a shared global culture of music and fashion and film and much else.
