The Hurlers: The First All-Ireland Championship and the Making of Modern Hurling

In 1882, a letter was published in the Irish Times, lamenting the decline of hurling. The game was now played only in a few isolated rural pockets, and according to no fixed set of rules. It would have been absurd to imagine that, within five years, an all-Ireland hurling championship would be underway, under the auspices of a powerful national organization.

The Hurlers is a superbly readable account of that dramatic turn of events, of the colourful men who made it happen, and of the politic...