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Old Parish
- Author
- Ciarán Murphy
- Narrator
- Ciarán Murphy
- Publisher
- Penguin Books Ltd
- Publish Date
- 18 September 2025
- Run Time
- 5 hours 35 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
Hurling is Ireland’s national game – a source of fascination and pride, even to people who have never played it. Ciarán Murphy, a lifelong club footballer, used to be one of those people. Then he spent a summer trying to play hurling with a tiny club in the West Waterford Gaeltacht. Along the way he embarked on a quest to understand the history, geography and mystique of this extraordinary sport.
Old Parish is the club of Ciarán’s father, a club where relatives of his are still deeply involved, and possibly the only place brave (or stupid) enough to take on a forty-one-year-old newcomer to the game. Predictably (and at times hilariously), Ciarán finds out just how difficult a sport hurling is to pick up when you’re in your sporting dotage, up against men who’ve played it since childhood.
Ciarán also explores why hurling is played in only half the country; he investigates the origins of hurling clubs’ antipathy to football and the difficulties of establishing hurling in new areas; he looks into the mysteries of hurley-making; and he seeks to understand why, when a hurling legend refers to the sport as ‘the greatest game ever played by any man’, he has to be taken seriously.
Anyone who has ever watched hurling knows that it is something unique and extraordinary. Old Parish explains why.
© Ciarán Murphy 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
Critics Review
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Murphy's great gift as a storyteller is an ability to see things in the round
Irish Times
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Entertaining and thoughtful
Irish Independent
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No matter if you're a die-hard hurling fanatic or you've never seen a match, Old Parish is well worth a read.
Hot Press
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There aren’t enough of these books … The whole thing is a delight
Irish Times
User Reviews
No reviews yet.
Details
- Author
- Ciarán Murphy
- Narrator
- Ciarán Murphy
- Duration
- 5 hours 35 minutes
- Release Date
- 18 September 2025
- ISBN
- 9781405985345
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Penguin Books Ltd
- Genre
- Hurling, Autobiography: sport, History of sport, Social and cultural history, Sociology: sport and leisure
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin. Hurling is Ireland’s national game – a source of fascination and pride, even to people who have never played it. Ciarán Murphy, a lifelong club footballer, used to be one of those people. Then he spent a summer trying to play hurling with a tiny club in the West Waterford Gaeltacht. Along the way he embarked on a quest to understand the history, geography and mystique of this extraordinary sport.Old Parish is the club of Ciarán’s father, a club where relatives of his are still deeply involved, and possibly the only place brave (or stupid) enough to take on a forty-one-year-old newcomer to the game. Predictably (and at times hilariously), Ciarán finds out just how difficult a sport hurling is to pick up when you’re in your sporting dotage, up against men who’ve played it since childhood.Ciarán also explores why hurling is played in only half the country; he investigates the origins of hurling clubs’ antipathy to football and the difficulties of establishing hurling in new areas; he looks into the mysteries of hurley-making; and he seeks to understand why, when a hurling legend refers to the sport as ‘the greatest game ever played by any man’, he has to be taken seriously.Anyone who has ever watched hurling knows that it is something unique and extraordinary. Old Parish explains why.© Ciarán Murphy 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
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