Gaelic Swivel

Some local news for the town of Clane, in County Kildare, Ireland, tomorrow and Saturday is the 150th Anniversary of the Annual Gaelic Swivel Ball Championship. The game was introduced to Ireland in 1868, and is based on a similar game which was played at the time in India called Backlék. Those unfamiliar with the rules of Gaelic Swivel will note that it is played by two opposing teams of twenty-two players each, with the object of the game being to place a ball, called the Bee, in the the back pocket of the opponent’s body cage. Some scholars believe that it is from Gaelic Swivel, or more probably Backlék, that we gained the phrase: To be in someone else’s pocket, which they contend is a derivation of: Placing a Bee in your opponent’s pocket. I’m especially looking forward to this year’s event, as my grandfather was the 1962 championship winner (pictured here), and he is being honoured by an induction into the Gaelic Swivel Hall of Fame, with the event being sponsored by our local firm of carpet cleaners, Clane’s Clean Carpets and Mats.

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Hey @user_not_found

This is a really curious Sport. First of all congratulations to your granfather , I hope that tomorrow the ceremony will be great. Is Swivel popular only in your County?

Please add pictures and iconic moments in reply to this post whenever you can, as I am really curious to see how you will celebrate, hopefully without any stings of bee.

Looking forward for any updates from you!

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Thank you, it is a very proud moment for me and my family. Have a good day, Dáithí.

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Hello @user_not_found I can’t believe it, another Irish person !! I haven’t heard much about swivel ball. Of course I follow GAA Gaelic football in Croke Park and bit of hurling. Great photograph of your Grandfather Joe. Best wishes from, Orla

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Hi Orla, or “Dia dhuit” as gaeilge, I love our local traditions and fairs, there’s always much ‘craic’ to had, we even have our own version of the Highland Games, but it mostly involved flinging a welly over a high bar, I think it developed out of the haystack chuck from the Highland Games, but I’ve no idea why they chose a welly…but it’s good craic anyhow. Good day to you, regards Dáithí.

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Hi @Sorbe I’m Irish and I have never heard of it, :grinning: its not a national sport like Gaelic football, which recently Dublin ( where I live) became champion all Ireland Team in our national stadium of Croke park. Also Gaelic hurling is a national sport. We also have a national soccer team. So interesting to me go hear about swivel ball too​:smiling_face: By the way the Bee is the name of the players ball and not bee the insect although in the photo at first I thought was a bee keeper

Ah yes, hurling, a great sport which some believe has it origins in Cú Chulainn and a similar game played by the Gale called Gáléuin, which was actually played in Clane until it was banned in 1882 by those early founders of the GAA. Why, if you go into Jones’ Bar, they have a Gáléuin stick behind the bar, which is not unlike a shalalie now that I think of it, except it has a flatter face much like a hurley stick, which leads some to believe that Gáléuin was actually the origin of hurley. If it was, it would be a matter of great pride that we have two ancient sports played here in our small town. Regards Dáithí.

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Hi @user_not_found Yes Kildare seems to be a great place for the Irish traditions and history. My brother in law’s great grandfather was one of the founding members of the GAA and there is a room in Croke Park named after him.

Ah yes, I don’t to Croker as often as I’d like, but I have to say having room there named for a relative is a high honour indeed. Have a great day Orla, “Up the Dubs!”…

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Hi @user_not_found Up the Dubs indeed. I don’t live too far from Croke park and live bear Parnell park where a lot of GAA matches are played too. I’m on connect since August and you are the first other Irish person that I have seen do a post, so Cead Mile Failte !! ( that means welcome in Gaelic language for other readers, Cead Mile Failte )

Go raibh maith agat!

Hi @Eire27

“Gaelic football is not a sport. It’s a religion”. That was one of the first statement I have heard after landing in Dublin on my first visit.

I was quite intrigued, so I went to visit the “Temple” of this special religion.

Do you support any specific team @user_not_found @Eire27 ?

@Sorbe Gaelic Football certainly is a religion, but one in which there is no salvation from the miserable affliction of following a team which who are perennial losers, as with the one, through the accident of birth, I follow: The Lillie Whites - Kildare. We’ve last had success in 1928, so it’s been a while, penance I guess you’d call it, a manner of atoning for the sin of being birthed out in the hinterlands, itself a fall from Paradise as it’s beyond the Pale, the boundary that marks you off from the chosen people, or Jackeens as we like to term them, we are the sinned upon, the Culchies, (for anyone not familiar with the Hibernian, a Culchie is anyone born west of the M50), too unrefined to grace Croker, the hallowed church of the faithful, and we ourselves are reduced to playing our own games formed during intervals during the Plowing Champions, like welly chucking, and báting each other sticks, as we have more of heretical reverence to agricultural ways, rather than the truly cultural reverence to aul’ Sam, and so no sup is to be taken from him, as the administering of his Eucharist goes only to those of true faith, those up around Ringsend, or if you’re sticking to the Liffey, those about Chapelizod, considered to be that last outpost of the properly faithful before the Palmerstown exit and the aul’ heretical bumpkins of Cultieville. Oh, yeah, it’s a religion all right, but we have own little heretical sects, and it’s hard to believe we are but three bends of the Liffey away from this Holy See, and yet, sporting wise at least, we might as well be on the other side of God’s great earth. The best of the day to you, Dáithí.

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@user_not_found call it coincidence, but the nickname of the football team that I support is…The Lilly Whites!

Hi @Sorbe Yes indeed that is a True saying :smiling_face: I’m from Dublin so of course Dublin or The Dubs as locally named is the team I support. Great photo of Croke Park ( the temple) :wink: Dublin are 2018 All Ireland Champions. Croke Park is not just a football stadium, it’s a large part of Irish History. When the English ruled Ireland, we were forbidden to speak our Gaelic language or play any Gaelic sport, football, hurling. So its sort of Irish identity. Although speaking English now comes in handy these days with a lot of the world speaking English. Foreign students actually come to Ireland to study and learn English these days

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Hi @Sorbe Wow that is a coincidence about, The Lilly Whites! Hey @user_not_found who are you calling a jackeen, ya Culchie :joy:

@Eire27 I wear my Culchiehood with pride, why every St. Patrick’s Day we have a Culchie float celebrating our origins in the heroic figure of Cú Lchíen, or the Hound of Lchíen, who was the last of the Gale guardians before the days of the Pale. He cuts the dashing figure in his traditional garb of flat-cap, wellies and string tied overcoat, with his sword of hawthorn held aloft belting out the Culchie cry of “Away-with-that-out-a-ya!”. Oh, yeah, he’s usually companioned with his trusty steed, Donkey Dray, and a sack of that currency used by all the Gale: bog cut turf. A tip of the pint to the man. We follow this fifty foot effigy, in similar garb, praying for: a soft day, thank God, and hoping for the medical administering, when all praising is done, of the hallowed black stuff, heated by an open turf fire down the local. Pride indeed, pride indeed.

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That’s a gas story, you should write a book :grin:

Thanks @Eire27 as it happens I’ve written 7, my latest is Acre Under Pewter Sky…it makes full use of the Hibernian, with a little bit of Flann O’Brie’s flight of fancy…

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Hello @user_not_found Thanks a lot for sharing this with us. Great.

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