The match started at 4, so I left Cork by bus around 12:25. It is around an hour and a half journey and the scenery on the way there is gorgeous. Open fields bordered by hedges and trees spreading over rolling hills radiate outwards from Cork city and as far as I've seen from my travels in Munster over most of the southwestern part of the province. We crossed a few rivers in our journey from Cork to Limerick although I have no idea what their names were.
Once in Limerick I began the rather long walk to the venue pretty much alone. The closer I got, however, the more people I ran into. The vast majority of people I saw while walking to the match were Tipp fans, and as we crossed the Shannon River and got progressively closer to the stadium our numbers swelled. Along the way as we began to get very close to the grounds (within a mile or so) we began to run into enormous groups of fans spilling out of hotel bars and pubs drinking beer or cider from plastic cups, vaguely reminiscent of an American college on a weekend night. A friend had dropped off my tickets at the reception desk of a hotel close to the ground, so I went and picked them up. Unfortunately my friend from Claire ended up not being able to make it at the last minute, so I was only able to use one of the two tickets I had at my disposal.
After picking up the tickets I continued on to the stadium itself, walking into bigger and bigger crowds as I went. One of the striking differences about sporting events here and sporting events in America is the way everyone arrives at the venue. In the United States, most stadiums have enormous parking lots surrounding them or at least very close by. Here the stadiums are built into the cities themselves and therefore have no room for large expanses of blacktop to park cars on. As a result, everyone walks from a relatively far distance. It generally ends up being a really cool experience just walking to the match because you get to see the crowd getting denser and denser as you approach the stadium.
Anyway, I got into the stadium and made my way to my seat, which was in the 5th or 6th row on one of the sidelines about 40 yards from the end (the field is around 140 yards long). I pretty much immediately realized that the atmosphere at this match was going to be much better than the football final of last weekend. It seems that more people in Munster care about hurling than care about football. The stadium was packed and was about half blue (Tipp) and the other half yellow (Claire) although I think that overall the crowd was more pro-Tipp. Flags waved all over the stadium although they were concentrated in the terraces (cheap tickets where you don't get a seat at both ends of the pitch). I unfortunately didn't get any pictures inside the stadium, mostly because it didn't cross my mind at all.
The match itself started off quickly. Tipp scored the first point and never trailed after that. In the first half (and to a lesser extent in the second as well) the Claire attackers were woefully inaccurate with their shots, missing at least as many as they put on target. This delighted the Tipp fans I was surrounded by, although the volume of shots Claire were getting worried them. By halftime Tipp had scored a goal and was well in control of the match winning 1-11 (14) to 0-6 (6). The vocal support after points and other good sequences of play were impressive, and the collective outpouring of joy after Tipp's first goal was one of the loudest cheers I have heard in an outdoor stadium, although this may have been because I was in the middle of it yet not exactly a part of it in the same way that everyone else was. It was exciting, of course, but not having any significant allegiance to Tipp I didn't feel the same connection with fellow celebrating spectators like I usually do at sporting events.
Claire looked better in the second half and it began with the two sides trading points. This made for a slightly more interesting match for me although since Claire was down by 8 points this could not last if Claire wanted to have a shot at winning. After a few minutes, however, Tipp seemingly began to go flat and Claire exploited this, starting to slowly draw closer to their opponents. The end of the pitch with all the Claire supporters got progressively louder and more excited as the momentum shifted in favor of Claire and the Tipp fans sitting around me anxiously watched the match, getting progressively quieter as they began to fear that Claire were taking over the match.
Fortunately for my Tipp neighbors, with about 15 minutes to play a Tipp hurler scored an impressive goal to reestablish an 8 point lead and effectively squash any hope of a comeback by Claire. Almost immediately after Tipp got another point to make it at least a three goal game, making the last bit of the game a mere formality. With only a few minutes to play the Tipp goalkeeper made a rather spectacular save to deny Claire a consolation goal and as extra time began Tipp supporters had already begun jumping the barriers between the stands and the field in anticipation of the final celebration. They barely stayed off the field long enough, and the tide of joyous blue-clad supporters rushed onto the field at the final whistle waving blue and yellow flags.
The bus ride back was marred by some traffic, but aside from that pretty uneventful. The city itself was quite empty aside from Claire and Tipp fans and most of the shops were closed. I was quite impressed by the complete lack of any sort of antagonism between opposing sets of fans. The hooligan culture of European soccer supporters evidently does not carry over into GAA fans.
Sorry, that was long. Here's a picture of what I think is Limerick Castle, viewed from a park along the Shannon River.
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