Coffee Table Book of: The Sports of Hurling and Camogie (Hardcover)

Description

Coffee Table Book of: The Sports of Hurling and Camogie is a large format book of hurling and camogie, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two: the ash hurley and the leather sliotar, helmets and the rest of the kit, grass fields standing empty from first light to moonlight, the ash and leather the game is made from, its long past, and a few hurlers seen far off in plain dark clothing.

The kit is laid out plain: a hurley seen from above, the broad bas of the goalkeeper’s hurley, a steel band tacked round a bas and grip tape built into a knob, a white sliotar with its raised rim, a white ball beside a yellow one and a mesh bag of balls, a helmet and the steel bars of its face guard, padded gloves, studded boots, a kit bag with two hurleys, a dark jersey on a fence post and the white and green flags of the umpires.

The making follows the ash from a winter wood, a lone tree, winged seeds and young trees in rows to a felled butt with its flared root, logs, planks dried with sticks between them, a hurley drawn on a plank and shaped with a spokeshave among pale shavings, and cork and white leather sewn into a sliotar by hand.

Then the places, empty at every hour and in every season: fields at first light in summer mist, in heavy rain, frost, snow, flood and fog, under lamps, a full moon and a rainbow, beside a river, a lake and the sea, among hills, hay meadows and hawthorn, a bare dressing room, an old gate and a lone wall for striking practice, and a few small hurlers far off, soloing at dusk, pucking a ball at sunset, leaping for a high ball, taking a puck out and a sideline cut, training between cones and walking home along a lane.

Short notes run through the book, on the rules and how the game is played, the hurley, sliotar and helmet and how they are made, and the long history of hurling and camogie: hurling goes on in wind and rain, though a wet leather ball grows heavy and slick, to run with the ball, a hurler bounces or balances it on the bas, a move called the solo, a helmet’s hard shell and foam lining spread the force of a blow from a ball or a hurley, and the goals stand in an H, like rugby posts, but with a net below the crossbar.

Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a hardcover with the art printed on the case.