Cú Chulainns in the Cooleys

Success in the Poc Fada in the Cooley mountains means negotiating rocks, slopes, bogs, gullies, water "features" – and the world's biggest bunker, writes KATHY SHERIDAN

THE POWERFUL silhouette of a hurler stands tall, framed in the mist against Carn an Mhadaidh on Annaverna, his boots buried in the heather, head raised towards the looming, thunderous sky as he follows the soaring arc of the sliotar up the mountain. The scene could be as old as Cú Chulainn, rambling over the Cooleys that straddle Louth and Armagh with his sliotar and shield, hurdling mountain streams, crunching through rushes, thistles, white bog cotton and purple heather studded with tiny, jewel-like yellow flowers, killing the tedium by betting on the number of pocs it would take him to thwack the ball the 32km from Drogheda to Dundalk. They say he poced a ball from Carn an Mhadaidh all the way to Eamhain Macha. Some suggest he upped the ante by racing to catch the dropping ball on his shield, although that sounds a bit far-fetched.

For those of us grappling, sliding, soaked and staggering in the teeth of a gale past the Slip of the Giant, An Ceide, Mary’s Bog and Creaga Dubha up to Carn an Mhadaidh – the half-way point about an hour and a half into the 5km Poc Fada course – the story that his dog is buried up there seems completely plausible. Even the hound gave up the ghost at that point. The Carn, a mound of rocks about 6m high by 9m wide, could well be the final resting place of some exhausted human bodies as well.

But GAA folk are nothing if not resilient. If Cú Chulainn was in the habit of packing a head of boar for a snack at the Carn, he would have recognised the same quality in the Poc Fada regulars, who sit stoically on an unsheltered rock, turn their backs to the gale – and a sudden, sustained onslaught of needle-sharp sleet – and launch into the ham sandwiches.

The modern Cú Chulainns take a break at the Carn with everyone else, sheltered by adoring young followers. “I never saw the wind as bad up here – and we’ll be into the head-wind all the way down. I’d say it’ll take 56 to 58 pocs today,” says Brendan Cummins, the Tipperary goalkeeper, four-time winner of the 48-year-old event and holder of the 48-poc course record. The secret of winning? “Stamina. And consistency. You can hit the ball 80-90 yards [73-82m] on average but how many times can you hit it 110 to 120 yards [100-110m]? It’s how many times you can do that. That’s two or three pocs of a difference and that’s what decides it.”

He modestly downplays the skills and shoulder-power required: “Ah no, there’d be no weights or anything like that. Sure you’re brought up from that height [gesturing towards his knees] to hit the ball. You’d have grown up with that in your bones . . . though you wouldn’t have grown up with heather around your feet.”

The Poc Fada is a bit like golf without holes. It is played with hurleys, the objective being to poc the ball as far as possible, guided by the yellow-painted stones that mark out the 5km course, and to get around the mountain in the fewest possible number of pocs. There’s a lot more to it than the raw ability to whack a ball. It’s about stamina, consistency, the lottery dealt by the elements, the fact that the ground is insanely uneven and that players and spectators need the fitness of a mountain goat, the ability and willingness to negotiate rocks and slopes, soggy bogs, gullies and water “features” not evident until you’re up to your ankles in them, a facility to side-step the vast offerings of sheep droppings and horse manure and finally, to tip-toe across a proper ravine – “the biggest bunker in the world”, as sponsor Martin Donnelly describes it – about 20m deep by 73m wide with rushing water and dodgy stepping stones.

But the rewards are constant and wonderful. “Look,” comes a shout – and over to the left, towards Dundalk Bay, in what looks like another universe, a vast blue canopy is opening over the rocky outcrops and shimmering, azure water dotted with tiny sailboats far below. On top of the Carn, two young lads sit blown in the wind, grinning, radiating energy and mischief, before leaping down the rocks and racing, tumbling, rolling, crashing into one another, down the steep heather-clad incline just for the sheer joy of it – until one crashes to a halt, gingerly feeling his ankle. “Ah, I’ve twisted me ankle about 14 times,” he smiles ruefully, as he limps off with his friend to chase a ball landing in the heather.

It’s only one of the elements that make the Poc Fada unique. An unobtrusive team of Civil Defence people brings up the rear, with a stretcher in case of the worst, but the sense of liberation from the butterfly nets of health and safety and the paralysing fear of litigious predators is almost intoxicating for children and grown-ups. “Fore,” shouts Kilkenny’s James McGarry, on the mountain for the first time with his son acting as a “marker”, and a bit apprehensive about unwary spectators.

“Heads,” shouts someone else as a ball slams off a rock and a “spotter” gallops into the heather for it, guided by shouted directions from happy, near-miss on-lookers. “Give it a lash. Hit it left of the lads on your right – no, hit it at them, the wind’ll take it,” roars a mentor, as the player uses a lump of heather to gauge wind direction and the “lads” remain in situ, serenely unconcerned.

Finally, three-and-a-half hours after we started, we make it across the ravine, guided in by the glint of the sun off the row of fabulous, be-ribboned trophies perched on a cairn of stones awaiting the victors. Their mighty labours are being recorded on a large score-board that owes nothing to technology. Small boys race around in their county jerseys, flourishing hurleys, sliotars and stars in their eyes, mingling with the greats of the game.

In the end, Brendan Cummins cedes his three-in-a-row crown to Roscommon’s Gerry Fallon, who took 60 pocs (to Cummins’s 61) to finish the course, a testament to weather conditions. For the spectators, a final hurdle remains: the walk down the interminable stony track past the crumbling walls snaking back to the cars – a terrible fate averted by this squelching reporter, thanks to Dundalk’s Mickey Rafferty, who gave us a lift and provided a fitting culmination to a day unlike any other.

Next year, we’ll be bringing our own picnic.