It’s hard to avoid the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) in Ireland, even if you wanted to. Considering practically every town and village has at least one GAA club it’s easy to understand why.
Hurling, Football and Camogie match fixtures often dictate the rhythm of a family’s activities. Try to arrange something that clashes with an important match; well good luck to you.
Last weekend there was a bit of a lull in the usually hectic training/match schedule and two of our nephews stayed with us. So what did we do?
Well the first thing we did was go to the GAA Museum and the Croke Park tour!
It was my wife’s idea and we had a ball!
Croke Park looked a little different than it normally does as specially designed lights were being used by the grounds men to stimulate the grass, there were seats on The Hill after recent soccer and rugby matches and the changing rooms had all the county jerseys on display.
So what did the museum offer?
- Over 40 audio-visual displays showing great players of the past
- Touch screens allowing the selection of archived games
- The original Sam Maguire and Liam MacCarthy cups on display
- An interactive games area to test your hurling and football skills, your balance and your reaction times
- Historical objects showing the development of the games
I’ve never played hurling, and it shows. After watching my wife (who played camogie) my nephews (who play hurling) having no trouble belting the sliotar at a target I decided to gave it a go. After a few tries and a lot of laughing I finally made contact; I never came close to hitting the target though.
We all gathered in the reception area for the Croke Park stadium tour. It lasted about an hour and to quote my 14 year old nephew, “it’s savage”.
Sitting in the dressing rooms, standing in the team’s warm-up area, hearing the simulated crowd cheering as we walked through the tunnel on to the pitch – “savage” was definitely the word to describe it.
The family ticket for the museum and tour cost €30 and for that we all had a fantastic time. Apart from the Irish, there were also French, Germans and Americans on the tour. It looked to me that everyone went away feeling it was money well spent.
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