This superb pictorial history covers one of the great showpiece events of the Irish sporting calendar, the All-Ireland Hurling Final. First contested in 1887, it is an occasion full of drama, emotion, triumph and disappointment. It is a showcase for one of the world's great games, the fastest of all field sports. Frank Burke has been collecting photographs and making films for many years and he has now produced a comprehensive pictorial history of hurling's greatest day. Although the surviving visual evidence for the first thirty years is obviously incomplete, the record improves greatly from the 1920s onwards and there is a continuous annual record of the hurling final from that time. The book takes us through some of the great achievements: the first three-in-a- row (Cork 1892-94); the early dominance of Tipperary; the emergence of Kilkenny, the thunder and lightening final of 1939; Tipperary's three-in-a-row (1949-1951); the romance of the Wexford team of the 1950s. From the 1970s onwards, the book moves into the colour era and records the revival of hurling in Galway and the emergence of Offaly and Clare as major forces challenging the traditional counties.
Frank Burke's hurling videos sold over six and a half thousand copies each in counties Galway and Cork, and over three and a half thousand in county Clare. There is a strong market and appetite for quality publications on hurling which this book will satisfies.
- ISBN10 0717138097
- ISBN13 9780717138098
- Publish Date February 2005
- Publish Status Cancelled
- Out of Print 24 May 2005
- Publish Country IE
- Publisher Gill
- Imprint Gill & Macmillan Ltd
- Format Paperback
- Pages 160
- Language English