IRELAND FOR BEGINNERS

Gaelic games:

St Patrick's Day brings the climax of the club championships in Gaelic games, which combine elements of the American sports of gridiron and baseball but are played with an intensity more associated with Mafia turf wars. The two main games are "football" and "hurling", the chief difference being that in football, the fights are unarmed.

There is also "camogie" which is like hurling, except that in fights the hair may be pulled as well. Definitions of hurling "the fastest game on earth" was best described by a Cork man to an American tourist when he said "its like a cross between ice hockey and murder".

Schools rugby:

St Patrick's Day also brings the finals in schools rugby, a game based around the skills of wrestling, kicking, gouging, ear-biting, and assaults on other vulnerable body parts. The game is much prized in Ireland's better schools, where it's seen as an ideal grounding for careers in business and the law.

St Patrick:

It is well-known that St Patrick banished the snakes from Ireland. Less publicised is that he also banished kangaroos, polar bears and Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, all of which were regarded as nuisances by the early Irish Christians.

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