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Sean T. Noonan
U.S. Soldiers Start Irish Hurling Team
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very year, many soldiers in the U.S. Army stop in Ireland’s Shannon Airport on their ways to and from deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. For a group of soldiers in Army unit C/3-172 Infantry of the New Hampshire National Guard, these layovers were the introduction to a sport they had never before heard of: hurling. In 2005 Lieutenant Colonel Ray Valas saw a hurling match on one of the airport televisions and was intrigued
by the sport. The next time the soldiers passed through Shannon, other men in the unit became equally interested. After returning from their tour of duty in 2005, the soldiers decided to give the game a try. Clearly, they enjoyed it: they have since formed the Barley House Wolves Hurling Club and now have their own coach – a Cork native named Ruairi O’Mahoney. Their crest features a wolf to represent their army unit and nine stars to mark New Hampshire’s history as the ninth state to join the union. The team colors are blue, which represents the Infantry, and gray to indicate their roots in New Hampshire, “The Granite State.” Their motto is “Bona na Croin,” which translates to “No Collar, No Crown” and, to the team, represents “men who would be neither slave nor subject.” O’Mahoney praises his team’s determination and their commitment to mastering the challenging sport, the rules and strategies of which take quite some getting used to: “Coming from Ireland,” he said, “everybody that does play hurling would pick it up at a young age. So for this bunch of guys, some of whom are over 40, to take up this game is amazing and the commitment they have shown is something else.” It seems that they are, in fact, becoming experts with the sliotar and hurley: The men have played in the New Hampshire region Junior-C grade, they otre Dame football coach Brian Kelly (interviewed by Niall have competed in the U.S. National Championships, O’Dowd in our last issue) had a good end of the season. Though and they recently completed a hurling tour of things got off to a shaky start, with losses to Navy and Tulsa in October, Ireland. In 2009 they began a youth program to the Irish came back with a vengence, defeating Utah, Army, Southern introduce the sport to the children and teens in the California and Miami. The Irish’s 33-17 win against Miami in the Sun area, promoting the building of athletic skills and Bowl made Kelly the first Notre Dame coach to bring home a bowl victeamwork. tory in his first season. The luck of the Irish may be returning. The Barley House Wolves were recently the subject of a brilliant short documentary on The Pentagon Channel called “Two Fields, One Team.
Congratulations, Coach Kelly
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