A spiritual exercise that came to an unusual end

God be with the days when the parish priest or one of the curates came into the dressing room on the day of a big game and blessed the sliotars…

At that time, about fifty years ago, it was a common custom for each team to contribute two or three to the match. Sometimes, the ball from one team was used for one half of the game and vice versa. However, players were inclined to make jokes about these blessings, without in any way intending to be irreverent: “Our sliotars were blessed by a monsignor, no less. The other side had only a curate to do the work for them. Little wonder we won.”

In an amusing way, it raised the question of the potency of a blessing. Would the blessing of a bishop be of greater spiritual value than that of a canon? “The Archbishop is coming into the dressing room before the All Ireland to do the blessing. Unless Kilkenny have the Pope himself we’ll surely win.”

All this light-hearted speculation made for some unease in Church circles and the matter was discussed by the Archbishop. However, it was said that the practice of blessing the ball came to end because of an unusual event. A group of hurlers from Tipperary were employed by Irish subcontractors doing work on a power station in the then French Congo. They took their hurleys with them and used have a few pucks on a dusty playing pitch before light faded in the late afternoons near the edge of the jungle.

On the eve of their return to Ireland, they were pucking about when a small, wizened man came running from the jungle pursued by three black fellows brandishing clubs. The little man was attired in a leopard skin, with a flamboyant headdress of feathers and with bones dangling round his neck. He ran towards them. The stout-hearted hurlers, taking pity on his plight, faced up to his pursuers with their hurleys. The black fellows retreated back into the jungle.

One of the Congolese workers, who acted as interpreter, told the hurlers that this was a sort of medicine man. Apparently, he had provided the men chasing him a nauseous brew intended to cure them of an acute form of diarrhoea. It had proved unsuccessful. Equally important, they had paid him the equivalent of a good sum of money, in the form of gunny sacks of aromatic roots, laboriously unearthed in the jungle, as well as a basket of paw-paws. So they had some reason to be annoyed.

The witch doctor was grateful for being rescued. He asked for the sliotar to be put on the ground and hummed some sort of chant over it. After that he took some sand-like substance from a leather pouch attached to his belt and shook it over the ball. The interpreter explained: “Him put lucky spell on dat ball” Of course, the Tipperary men just smiled indulgently and thought no more about it. A fortnight later, back home again, the man who owned the ball found himself picked for his club side. In the dressing room he simply said, “ Here’s a lucky ball” and produced his sliotar. They won the match handily.

It was when they won three more games in a row, with the same ball being used at some stage during each game that the other players began to call it “Our lucky ball”, without knowing anything of the background. When they reached the county final, the mentors asked the parish priest, who was chairman of the club, to bless the sliotars before the match and he agreed to do so. However, he was laid low by a bout of gout and could not attend. On the other hand, the rival team had a monsignor do the blessing for them.

Against all the odds, our team of ex-Congo men prevailed, with the lucky ball being used in the second half, when it entered the rivals’ net on two occasions in the last ten minutes. It was at the celebratory dinner some nights later, when our hero had a good few drinks, that he told all and sundry the full story of the sliotar. He has absolutely no belief in the spell of the witch-doctor but he made a great story of it. People laughed uproariously. But the parish priest was less than amused. Next day he ordered the player to appear at the parish house and to bring the ball with him. The priest confiscated it. The player protested but in those days the parish priest’s word was law.

There was a strange post-script to this story. That priest and his clerical colleagues in the nearby parishes were in the habit of gathering one evening a week for a card game. At one of these soirees the priest told the story of the lucky sliotar. He took it from his desk and after they had all handled it, he ceremoniously threw it on the blazing fire. Whatever resinated string and hard rubber was at its core, it burned with a great hissing noise, spitting and sputtering. In the end it set the chimney on fire. The house was never in danger but the water used by the fire brigade ruined the carpet, the easy chairs and settee.

The Archbishop got to hear about the whole affair. It was said he gave his opinion that the matter should not be spoken about by any of the priests. And, apparently, he also said that the custom of blessing the sliotars served no useful religious purpose and that it should be quietly dropped. Word of his wishes filtered down to all the clergy in the archdiocese.

Sadly, over a period of time, this put an end to what was essentially a well-intended spiritual exercise. It has taken a certain worthy religious element out of the game. No wonder we can’t go to a hurling match today without hearing the most coarse and profane language from players, mentors and spectators…