Gaelic Football

Today we went up to Castlebar for a football match—but it was neither American football or soccer. It was Gaelic football. Going into the match, we didn’t really know a whole lot except what our lovely bus driver, Owen explained to us on the drive up. Two teams of 15 players each try to score by either kicking it through the uprights like in American football or kicking it in the goal like soccer. But here’s the crazy part: they can use their hands.

At the pitch—the field—there was a large section of modern stadium seats under a roof to shield from the rain, and the rest was just old benches that looked to be poured concrete. We were all a little apprehensive about where we would end up sitting because the old benches did not look very comfortable. Lucky for us there are no reserved seats, so we followed Owen under the canopy to the newer seats.

Our team, County Mayo (Maigh eo), proudly donned their red and green jerseys against the #1 ranked Cork (Corcaigh) team. Even though we didn't fully understand what was going on, a handful of my classmates and I got really into the game, shouting and chanting along with the rest of the Mayo fans. Whenever Mayo scored a goal, nearly everyone immediately jumped to their feet and screamed. I never thought it would be so easy to get so swept up and consumed by the excitement of a sporting event. I go to baseball games every year, but I’ve never got so into the feverous fervor of the crowd. After the second goal I actually spilled hot chocolate all over myself, but it didn’t matter. We ended up seeing a brilliant match that left us wanting to see more. And it was a huge plus that Mayo won!