Tag Archives: hurling

Old Treasure Proves Quite a Bargain

by Woody

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here) and orderable at all bookshops.

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“How much for this one?” I asked the proprietor of a time-portal-in-the-wall antique shop in the charming Ireland town of Kilkenny.

The hurling stick I held forth looked as ancient and weathered as the cobblestones of the narrow street outside the front door. This “hurley,” as the Irish call the bats used in the ancient Gaelic sport, had obviously been game used for many, many seasons before perhaps being forgotten in an attic for half a century.

Its age and scars only made it more attractive, not less so, much as my wife is more beautiful in my eyes now than when we first started dating in college for her laugh lines and smile crinkles illuminate her prettiness, not diminish it.

Having again fallen in love at first sight, this time with a hurley in a storefront display window, I was prepared to pay handsomely.

“Twenty’s fair, I should think,” George said, meaning British pounds which equated nearly equally in dollars.

It was so beyond fair that I felt obligated to buy something more as well to up my tab and decided on a “Guinness For Strength” tin advertising sign featuring a brawny man pulling a horse riding in a cart.

“I’m a fan,” I told George, raising my pants leg to reveal a tattoo of an Irish harp which is also the trademark symbol of the famous brewery. Throughout my Ireland trip the black body ink had been a Willy Wonka-ike Golden Ticket garnering me free Guinness pints from countless bartenders. Its magic expanded now.

“Aye, an Irishman at heart you be!” the true Irishman fairly sang and made it his gift to me.

I now felt like I was stealing from this wee elderly man with a big kind heart. Back, back, back into the bowels of the shop I ventured and returned with a second Guinness sign, this one larger and of heavy wrought iron weighing about what George charged me for it—30 pounds—and I felt our transaction was now less one-sided in my favor.

George told me a hurling stick can be a nose-breaker—“Busted it more times than I can count playing,” he said of is own beak—but my hurley quickly proved also to be a conversation icebreaker.

Still in Kilkenny, a bartender named Eoin admired my souvenir and noted, his pride emphasized at the tail end: “Had me nose broken a few times on the pitch, but never went to hospital!”

Later that day, in a taxi in Dublin, the driver pointed to his nose that zig-zagged like a slalom ski course, then traced a long, straight scar above his left brow and said: “Lucky I didn’t lose my eye. If someone has a pretty face, don’t believe ’em if they say they played the game.”

Earlier, down the block from George’s shop, a souvenir store filled with T-shirts, coffee mugs and refrigerator magnets also had a large offering of brand-new hurling sticks for it turns out the Kilkenny Cats have been a dynasty the past century, the New York Yankees of their sport.

Eying my old-but-new-to-me hurley, the clerk behind the counter asked to examine it. He flexed his fingers around the age-worn handle finding a comfortable grip, took a couple slow-motion swings, then offered to trade a new stick for it that cost 75 pounds.

I declined without hesitation and without hesitation he upped his offer to two pristine hurleys.

“No, thanks,” I again told the clerk who had the nose and face of a guy who has played his fair share of hurling.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.

Antique Man in Antique Shop

by Woody

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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“How much?” I inquired, a hurling stick—“hurley” as the Irish call the flat-sided, fat-headed bats—cradled in my outstretched palms.

“Aye, that one near be old as me,” replied the proprietor of a Kilkenny antique shop, surely angling for a high price due to its vintage. “ ’tis certainly older than you, young man.”

That he called me, at age 63, a young man tells you that George, as he would later introduce himself, was himself an antique. Indeed, his thinning hair was snowy; his posture weary even before noon; his hands, covered by translucent skin as wrinkled as a shirt taken from a laundry hamper, had walnuts for knuckles.

Like his shop, a hole-in-the-wall he has owned for the past half-century—or nearly half his life, I guessed—George seemed worthy of the “Protected Landmark” plaque outside on the front door.

The hurley in my hands surely has not been protected from rough play, bad weather, or Father Time. Its white ash has turned a ghostly grey, much like George’s hands, and a steel protective band around the toe of hitting blade is spotted with rust. The shaft and handle bear scars from a thousand games.

And yet the ol’ stick is a thing of beauty.

And yet ol’ George had a boyish sparkle in his ice-blue eyes and a personality as warm as a peat fire in the evening. Hence, my quick step inside his shop turned into a rather long visit.

In appearance, George was as Irish as a leprechaun and not much taller; in speech, his brogue was as thick as the mash on a plate paired with bangers. Before giving me a price for the hurley, he said he had two more sticks if I was interested in a selection.

Thus began a child’s game of “hot” and “cold”—and “cooler” and “warmer”—as George, sitting on a stool behind a counter cluttered with jewelry and watches and other treasures, sent me weaving my way back, back, back through the bowling lane-narrow time capsule with Jenga-like stacks on the floor and over-packed shelves rising on the walls.

With George’s GPS-like guidance, I found the two needles in a haystack in surprisingly short order. Both hurleys were newer—“less old” is a more apt description—and less battle-scarred than the fossil that originally caught my eye.

I asked George if he remembered everything he had in the shop; and, if so, knew where everything was located.

“Aye, of course,” he insisted.

This was a tall boast from the wee man, for his antique emporium seemed to hold the relics of every estate sale in Kilkenny over the past century, all of it organized by a passing hurricane. Having just visited historic St. Andrews Golf Club in Scotland, an array of golf clubs caught my attention, especially the hickory-shafted “mashies” and “niblicks” and “spoons” that looked like Ol’ Tom Morris swung them in the 1860s.

There were also wooden tennis rackets from Bill Tilden’s era and 1970s aluminum ones; shelves of novels and vinyl LPs and 45s; phonograph players and rotary phones and typewriters; and on and on, everything in the world shoehorned inside the tiny shop that seemed as impossibly bottomless as Mary Poppins’ magic carpetbag.

 Everything in the world, that is, except a shoehorn—I actually asked George if he had one, playfully testing him; he didn’t, but instantly directed me to an antique wood-and-brass boot remover.

“How much for this one?” I asked again, my heart still stuck on the homely first stick.

To be concluded next week.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.

Old and Battered and Beautiful

by Woody

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here) and orderable at all bookshops.

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This is a story of love at first sight and a second chance.

The first time I visited Ireland, a full decade ago, the national hurling championships were underway and I fell head over heels—much as the players often wind up on the grass pitch.

If you have never seen the ancient Gaelic sport of hurling, imagine soccer with 15 players instead of 11 per side; add in the bone-jarring-nose-bloodying physicality of rugby; then give the players wooden clubs that look like the offspring of a field hockey stick and a cricket bat. The “hurley”, as the shortened bats are commonly called, can be used for knocking out teeth as well knocking a baseball-sized sliotar past a goalie to score three points.

Even more exciting are the moonshots that would make Dodgers home-run slugger Shohei Ohtani proud, where a player swings from the heels, often while on the run, often too while being assaulted by a defender, and sends the high-seamed ball soaring cloud-high and nearly the length of the 150-yard field over the crossbar and between the uprights, much like a football field goal, for a single point.

A statue of hurling in action in Kilkenny
A hurling statue in Kilkenny.

Indeed, anywhere and everywhere on the field is a scoring opportunity. I dare say, and I mean this truly after spending three decades as a sports writer, championship-caliber hurling may be the most thrilling sport I have ever witnessed.

Upon returning home from the Emerald Isles, I hurled mild expletives at myself for not bring back a souvenir stick. Hence, when My Better Half and I recently returned to the land of my ancestors I aimed to rectify my lingering non-buyer’s remorse.

Opportunity knocked in Kilkenny, population 26,000, about 80 miles southwest of Dublin and once the great medieval capital of Ireland. Strolling a narrow cobblestone street en route to Kilkenny Castle, built in the 13th century, I spied a hurley in the cluttered window of a wee antique shop that looked nearly as old.

The stick was a sore sight for eyes. Age had turned the white ash—the same wood American baseball bats are generally made, prized for its hardness—grey as winter clouds. The ball-striking blade had a steel band, spotted with rust and dints, wrapped around the toe and tacked tightly in place to prevent the grain from splitting. Higher on the blade a bandage of black tape, now petrified by age, served a similar healing purpose.

Beauty, of course, is in the eye of the beholder and I felt called to go inside and embrace it. Caressing the handle, its nub like that of an axe, the age-worn wood was burnished smooth as ivory by blood, sweat and years of play. Gripping it, my fingers settled into subtle impressions formed by the hands of time and players.

Appraisal along the shaft revealed dings and dents, battle scars from clashing with other hurleys wielded like dueling sabers. If this stick could talk, Oh, the tales it would tell! I imagined – of winning goals and celebrations, and heartbreaking losses too; of broken bones, broken noses, broken dreams.

“Aye, I played in my britches days,” said the shop’s proprietor, a human antique perched on a stool behind the front counter stacked with this, that, and other bric-a-brac. As Irish as Guinness, and not much taller than a poured pint, George, as I soon learned his name to be, traced his nose, battered as the hurley in my grasp, and told me proudly: “Busted it more times than I can count playing. Needed my fair share of stitches, too.”

To be continued next week…

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.