Ciaran Murphy's Old Parish: A love letter to family and hurling
“Old Parish - Notes On Hurling” is my second book. My first book was called “This Is The Life” (Penguin Sandycove, 2023), and it was about how the GAA has impacted my life from my first memory, how it has enriched my family relationships, my connection to home, and my understanding of Ireland.
But “Old Parish” is about a part of the GAA I felt like I just couldn’t access - because there are two Irelands. In the one I grew up in, hurling was not the done thing. In the other Ireland, it is very much the done thing, and no one there will ever be allowed to sell hurling short. It is quite convenient for its many hagiographers and obsessives that, when they say it is the most beautiful sport in the world to watch (‘the greatest game that was ever played by any man’, as Anthny Daly called it at the end of the 2018 All-Ireland final), the bombast is probably justified.
Like anything that is fiercely loved, it can feel a little like a closed shop. Ger Loughnane once said that if you hadn’t started hurling by the time you were 7, it’s probably too late. That meant I was about 35 years behind schedule when, at the start of last year, I decided to move to Waterford, join my father’s old club Old Parish, and write a book about taking up hurling in your forties.
The result is a book that is obviously not short on personal humiliation, because hurling is every bit as tough to learn as I’d expected. But the book is also about why a GAA-mad kid such as myself was denied the opportunity to play the game by the quirks of geography.
In the parts of the country where it is played, the game is a way of life. Where it isn’t played, it is admired as a spectacle, but the playing of it is treated with suspicion by those in gaelic football clubs. So the book is a personal story, but it is also a call to arms to ensure that more kids get the chance to play the world’s most enthralling sport.
I learn about the art of hurley-making, a skill dating back to pre-history that takes in the likes of the great Joe Canning, and this year’s All-Ireland winning captain Ronan Maher from Tipperary.
I also got to spend some time in one of the most picturesque corners of the world, and re-connect with a part of my family I thought I had left behind. Old Parish, An Sean Phobal, is a part of the Waterford Gaeltacht, an achingly beautiful place which values community, history, music and gaeilge.
So this book is a love-letter to them… and to embracing my quest for “that perfect moment of total failure” which would lead to a renewed understanding of a game I’ve admired all my life.
