School: Kilbeg (roll number 11039)
- Location:
- Robertstown, Co. Meath
- Teacher: -
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0708, Page 250
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Kilbeg
- XML Page 250
- XML “Games”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- Gaelic football is a great Irish game. In olden days it was played very differently to now. The ball they played was very small made by a boot-maker with a leather cover and a corked inside. The goals they had were only six feet wide and about four feet in length. Four sticks were stuck in the ground and one tied in the middle formed an arch. They had no definete sules, just one parish would challenge another. There might be about forty on each side. The ground was about 300 yards long and 100 yards wide. Teams used to go up in the middle of the field except one man that would act as goal keeper. The game usually lasted two hours and if there was no score in that time they would continue don until some side would get a goal which would decide the game. In a great many places the game would never be finished without a row. This was befoe the G. A. A. was founded in 1884 by Doctor Croke. Then they formed new rules with twenty players a side with a goal 12 feet wide and(continues on next page)
- Collector
- James Galligan
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Thomastown, Co. Meath
