Fastest field sport in the world, don't you know? They're all amateurs, sure they are. Would you believe they only started wearing helmets recently, health and safety gone mad.
If there is one thing Irish people love more than hurling, it is explaining hurling to foreigners. If you haven't dragged a foreign exchange student to a GAA game you were remiss in your duties as a teenage baby-sitting slave.
We bring our foreign relatives too, of course.
https://twitter.com/DonalWaide/status/762288282524717056
Even the GAA have copped on to the fascination of Cú Cuchulainn's favourite hobby and big games in Croke Park are promoted towards tourists - ahead of the drawn Kilkenny-Waterford match the PA announcer made a point of welcoming first time visitors to headquarters.
Sometimes we like to let visiting dignitaries have a go - although they usually get stuck with the safer football option: "somewhere between rugby and soccer, it is".
https://twitter.com/uachtaranclg/status/746382676064612352
In fairness, it does not always go brilliantly when we let our own politicians have a go at the small ball code.
But what happens when the foreigners not only already know about hurling and not only play the bloody game but have come all the way here to compete in the GAA World Games?
Well, our heads implode more than likely and we have questions to ask. You play hurling? Where you from? Do many Germans play? Is it the World Games, is it? How are ye getting on? Good craic though? Can I buy you a pint?
At least that is how this German hurler envisaged conversations going, so he had this T-Shirt printed up.
https://twitter.com/europegaa/status/763821930738814976?s=08
Wunderbar! Definitely worth a pint.
The latest episode of the GAA Hour Hurling Show is OUT NOW. Subscribe here on iTunes or listen below.
