We happened to pick a weekend to go to Dublin when there was a national hurling championship. We didn't have reservations anywhere, and we nearly didn't get a room. These are the fans that are going to the 80,000-seat stadium. The ones in red are fans of Cork, and the ones in maroon (you probably can't see many of them in this low quality picture) are fans of Galway. I watched a re-broadcast of the match later that evening. Cork won. Hurling is played with a very hard ball and slightly curved sticks that look a little like larger field hockey sticks. It's a little like lacrosse in that they can carry the ball on the end of their stick. They can also carry it in their hands for a while and pass it back and forth hand to hand. When they want to move the ball more quickly, they hit the ball with their stick. There are two ways to score. There is a net like in football (soccer for the Americans), and there are two uprights. I believe that if you get it through the uprights, you get 1 point. If you get it into the net, you get 3 points. It was amazing how players could score between the uprights from mid-field with their backs to the net. I could tell that it required a lot of skill to play at that level.
This is an arch in Dublin Castle. Dublin Castle is more of a palace. It was rebuilt in the 18th or 19th century as a palace, because the British didn't feel they needed a fortress in Dublin.
