‘To develop the game you must get American people to hurl’

If you had your wits about you last Sunday in Thurles, you might have seen a club outing at the Cork-Waterford match, but they came a lot further than from Mallow or Dungarvan.

The Hartford Kevin Barry’s hurlers toured Ireland this week, and Semple Stadium was one of their stops. Gaelic games have been played in Hartford since 1914, and in 1968 the Connecticut city team won a junior football championship, but hurling had faded until members Dick Edmonds and John O’Brien revived it.

“They’ve brought us to where we are now,” said club chairman Paul O’Sullivan. “Hartford’s halfway between Boston and New York, so we wouldn’t get many of the students who come out for the summer, though we play teams from those cities.