Mighty hurling around the mountain

The talk at the Poc Fada contest in the Cooley Mountains is of its golf resonances, but for Kathy Sheridan its significance goes beyond history as modern hurlers attempt to emulate Setanta's mighty deeds

'It's a round of golf, only with hurling sticks," grins Pat McGinn. Yeah, right, pants The Irish Times, after a stunningly unexpected three-hour, 5km, slide-climb-and-tumble tour of the Cooley Mountains last Saturday, thorns in her fingers, clothes covered in grass stains, muscles screaming for therapy.

Memo to Pat: you do not wind up in that state after a round in Portmarnock (that's if they let you in, mind you).

But this is the peculiar magic of the GAA. On the odd occasion when it abandons its search for world domination and/or control of the entire Exchequer, it produces an occasion so gloriously natural, so inclusive, so non-commercial, so unique, that you can only stand and applaud.

At the top of a long, steep and stony track that leads to the mountain that straddles the Border between Louth and Armagh, small boys flourishing hurleys, sliotars, county jerseys and stars in their eyes mingle with some of the game's past and present sporting greats.

There's a little tea tent, manned by friendly women who have been doing this "forever".

Up a bank, beside a cairn of stones, a row of fine, solid trophies glint in the sunshine, awaiting the victors, whose mighty labours will be recorded on the score-board that owes nothing to technology.

The warm breeze, the scent of grass, the great outcrops of purple heather, the baa-ing of scattered sheep, the breathtaking view to the bay far below and the occasional static from someone's radio keeping tabs on the battles in Croke Park are as resonant of a gentler, old Ireland as warm buttermilk.

To the uninitiated, the M. Donnelly All-Ireland Poc Fada Final 2004 is where you watch a few hurlers poc-ing balls on top of a mountain when you could, say, be in Croke Park watching Westmeath make um, history.

But the Poc Fada is better than history. It follows the mighty footprints of a legend - those of Setanta/Cú Chulainn who is reputed to have poc-ed a ball from Carn an Mhadaidh on Annaverna in the Cooleys, all the way to Eamhann Mhaca. Indeed his hound dog is said to be buried in Carn an Mhadaidh. Saturday's spectators were a tad hazy on all the details, with one woman suggesting irreverently that the legendary hurler must have been on "some kind of funny mushrooms" when he blasted that first poc fada.

But back to Pat. The modern event is a bit like golf, 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 round the mountain in the fewest possible number of pocs. Each hurler has a "meitheal" with him, lads who carry spare hurleys, plant the flag where the ball stops, offer observations - just like golf caddies.

The spectators who follow them around are just like golf spectators, too. In theory.

Practice is something else. The difference is the terrain; no manicured grass here or velvety greens. This is true mountain, with landmarks like The Slip of the Giant, Mary's Bog, Crock of Gold and Cadger's Pad, not to mention a 200ft ravine which sponsor Martin Donnelly is delighted to call "the biggest bunker in the world". This is because hapless hurlers often have to dig the ball out of a swathe of heather at the bottom before hefting it over the top.

For the spectator, this is mighty fun. The down side is that to get a look at the tortured faces, you must first negotiate the ravine. This means propelling yourself down one very long, bumpy bank at dizzying speed (thus the grass stains) before hauling yourself, with brute force, up the other (the thorns). And this after you've wheezed your way over several miles of rough, swampy mountain.

It's part of the genius of this event that any old ignoramus can chat with the stars out on the course (you wouldn't get that in Portmarnock, either, Pat).

Halfway round, two of the lads playing the mountain for the first time - Derry man Joe McEldowney and Leon O'Connell from Wexford - confess that it's "a way lot tougher" than they expected. "The hardest part is getting your footing in the heather . . . You're not standing level. You might only have one or two steps at most."

"Where the ball lands, it lands dead in the heather. It's a genuine poc fada, there's no movement," says Brendan Cummins, the All Star goalkeeper and AIB employee from Tipperary, here on his fourth outing.

The man is on fire; he goes on to smash the course record with a total of 48 pocs (last year's winner was 54). "Ah, you know the way some mornings you wake up and you feel grand . . . Your shoulders are loose," he explains modestly, as he joshes with the children presenting their sliotars for autographs.

It's an inclusive kind of day. Stephanie Gannon, a 16-year-old schoolgirl from Athenry, Co Galway, wins the camogie poc fada on the shorter course. She thinks that managing to avoid the ravine/bunker, unlike most of her rivals, might have played a part. You can sing it . . .

On a day that sang of excellence and modesty, fair play and friendship, not to mention (exhaustive) crowd participation, all in a staggeringly beautiful corner of Ireland, there was much enthusiastic talk among the Louth-Armagh organisers about a promise of greater input into the event from the GAA hierarchy.

Tread softly, Sean Kelly. As a long-time supporter, he knows this is the GAA at its most natural and best. It's an event to be cherished.