School: Baile an Chnuich (Hilltown)
- Location:
- Hilltown, Co. Wexford
- Teacher: Simon Murphy
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0882, Page 200
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- In olden times football was played by one parish against another. It was the custom for a crowd of young men to start to walk to another parish, and then to select as many players as they could get from the crowd to play, often up to thirty men on each side. A goal was scored when the ball was kicked against the ditch, or into the dyke at each end of the field, there was no such score as points. They had no posts, no end line, and only a side line where lookers on stood. The game often lasted two hours one hour each way.The football was often made of straw or horse hair covered with the skin of a calf, and stitched by some local man, other balls were made of a twisted rope of hay or straw and woven in and out and made round and then stitched through with a piece of skin. It was not as big as the football at present. They wore no colours at that time though some of the teams might wear blue, red, or green bands round their(continues on next page)
