just wondering has anyone ever seen a map with hurling strongholds or pockets mapped out on a proper irish map? id love to know exactly where they are. by a hurling stronghold i mean more than 3 hurling clubs within a 10 mile radius or an area in a county where hurling is at least on a par or more of intrest than football. in my own region i have roughly mapped it to as far an extent as i can with my knowledge. id love to hear more from other regions though. and it seems to go in regions and across county boundries.

In meath, westmeath and kildare there seems to be one full circle of hurling stronghold region. which if it were all in one county would surely match wexford or galway. this seems to be broadly from Kells in meath at the very north to maybe Clane in kildare in the south, it would roughly go as far west as Mullingar in westmeath to as far east as navan and south east to Rathoath in meath.

this are would now have a huge population, i would consider this region of hurling to stop at the Dublin borders with meath and kildare because dublin seems to be a regioin of itself.

As far as i know there are a large number of hurling only clubs in this region;
Meath:
Kiltale,kilmessan,kildalkey,killyon,rathmolyon,kilskyre.

Westmeath:
Clonkill,raharney,Brownstown,ringtown,cullion, turin, collinstown,

Not sure at all about kildare but hurling is very strong in celbridge, maynooth, leixlip and broadford this covers basically all of north killdare.
meath and westmeath both have another large amount of dual clubs in the region

dickie10 (UK) - Posts: 685 - 05/01/2017 19:29:59    1943324

Ards peninsula in Down is the hurling stronghold with 3 senior clubs, Portaferry, Ballygalget and Ballycran. The 4th club with any real hurling history is just across Strangford lough in Kilclief.

Suas Sios (None) - Posts: 1550 - 05/01/2017 20:33:34    1943344

Not sure how you selected those Westmeath clubs as Hurling only as there's only one official dual club in Westmeath but it should be easy enough to do up a map and throw it up online. There do seem to be patterns alright.

Jack_Sparrow (Westmeath) - Posts: 1014 - 05/01/2017 20:36:56    1943345

Travel through north And mid Tipperary, in every club grounds you'll find an AED on the wall of the changing rooms and beside it in another smaller box will be a pen knife for puncturing any football that makes it's way into the ground. It's a hurling stronghold with little or no football being played by any of the clubs.

GoldenVale (UK) - Posts: 22 - 05/01/2017 20:53:51    1943348

Ballyhea, Newtownshandrum, Dromina, Milford and Charleville are 5 clubs that are within this radius

The_Bull (Cork) - Posts: 248 - 05/01/2017 23:17:57    1943380

In Antrim you'd go to one of the most Northern tips of Ireland, Ballycastle. South of that is Loughguille and Dunloy via Armoy and then east from there back towards the coast you have Cushendall. That is the home of hurling in Antrim and there's not much else that matters up around there. Indeed not even the county jersey can unite the clans of north Antrim but there are some savage contests at club level all the same.

SaffronDon (Antrim) - Posts: 2385 - 06/01/2017 00:02:55    1943389

take a look at this article on history ireland by Kevin Whelan- think he has a book on it too - a good run down of what you are looking for -
http://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/the-geography-of-hurling-11-2/

73forever (Limerick) - Posts: 89 - 06/01/2017 12:57:25    1943493

dickie10 (UK) - Posts: 685 - 06/01/2017 21:18:55    1943611

yeah i found that myself but it gives no indication of hurling stonghold of western Meath, eastern Westmeath or North KIldare which are all one region, meaning hurling is treated as at least an equal to football throughout this whole area.

apart from Ards in Down and north Antrim is thier anywhere else, what about west Laois and parts of Wicklow? any other region anywhere in Rosscommon or Armagh?

dickie10 (UK) - Posts: 685 - 06/01/2017 21:22:21    1943612

TheHermit (Kerry) - Posts: 6354 - 06/01/2017 22:21:48    1943628

Great idea for a thread Dickie and some really interesting shares of knowledge here folks.

For Kerry I think Ballyheigue and Ballyduff are the two big ones and that area in general.

Rosscommon - Four Roads
Mayo - Tooreen and Keith Higgins club
Antrim - Glens and pockets around Belfast?
Kildare - Naas, Celbridge
Wicklow - Arklow

I''m rambling a bit above. A quick to do it could be to look up who the county hurling champions have been in various counties lately.

Killarney.87 (Tipperary) - Posts: 2513 - 06/01/2017 22:28:13    1943629

Roscommon you have Four Roads, Athleague, Tremane, Oran, Roscommon Gaels, Dominics all within a small area mainly along the River Suck (and formerly Ballygar too)

In Westmeath - Brownstown, Pollard, Ringtown, Delvin, Lough Lene Gaels, Turin, Crookedwood, Clonkill, Raharney, Cullion, Oliver Plunketts all located between Mullingar and the Meath border

manfromdelmonte (UK) - Posts: 541 - 06/01/2017 22:33:36    1943631

TheHermit (Kerry) - Posts: 6354 - 06/01/2017 23:05:00    1943643

Jack_Sparrow (Westmeath) - Posts: 1014 - 07/01/2017 09:01:05    1943670

In Longford the 3 clubs Wolfe Tones , Longford Slashers and Clonguish are all in towns / villages one after another along the N4.

Jack_Sparrow (Westmeath) - Posts: 1014 - 07/01/2017 09:10:25    1943671

Ballymacugh Hurling in south Cavan is not far from the Westmeath border.

Jack_Sparrow (Westmeath) - Posts: 1014 - 07/01/2017 09:13:12    1943672

Mayo - Tooreen and Ballyhaunis, very close to the Roscommon border (Ballinlough/Castlerea would the areas closest on the other side of the border. Isolated pocket.

Onion (Mayo) - Posts: 38 - 07/01/2017 10:13:05    1943677

In Kerry we have 8 senior clubs all in about 20 miles of each other and to make it better:
Lixnaw and Crotta are in the same parish,
Ballyduff and Causeway are in the same parish and
Kilmoyley and St.Brendans are in the same parish.

Jackos_Wacko (Kerry) - Posts: 417 - 07/01/2017 13:51:06    1943712

keeper7 (Longford) - Posts: 4088 - 07/01/2017 14:09:14    1943715

keeper7 (Longford) - Posts: 4088 - 07/01/2017 14:12:15    1943716