Lacrosse is a recognizable sport in most of the United States at this point. Players use special sticks with catches at the end to scoop up and fling a ball into the opposing team’s net. It’s a game with a unique history, with roots in Native American communities along the eastern woodlands and plains of the United States and Canada before being adopted by French and English settlers.
However, what if I were to tell you the Irish have been playing a very similar game since before the 5th century? Hurling (called iománaíocht in Irish Gaelic) is a sport where players use a wooden stick, called a hurley, to fling a small ball, called a sliotar, between the opposing team’s goalposts. To do so, a player must balance the sliotar on a scoop-like paddle at the end of the hurley. Sound familiar?
Of course, there are some key differences between hurling and lacrosse. The lacrosse stick’s net can hold a ball better than the hurley can, meaning the latter requires a player to balance rather than simply scoop the sliotar. Secondly, while lacrosse requires padding and face masks, hurling players traditionally go unprotected, with face masks only appearing as a requirement in 2010.
Despite these and other differences, hurling and lacrosse appear remarkably similar. However, they developed quite separately from each other. Lacrosse dates back to pre-Columbian North America, and hurling was first mentioned in a 5th-century document, although archeological finds suggest it might even be much older. These two sports make for a fascinating example of convergent evolution in sports, where two unrelated and disconnected cultures developed closely comparable games.
