Camogie

Camogie is an Irish stick-and-ball team sport played by women, and a close relative of hurling, the men's game from which it is a variant. Each team puts fifteen players on the field, and they use a stick called a hurley to strike a small ball, the sliotar, over the crossbar for one point or under it into the net for a goal worth three. A match lasts sixty minutes in two halves of thirty, somewhat shorter than a senior hurling match, and the rules differ from hurling in several small ways: the sliotar is smaller, side-to-side charges are forbidden, and a score taken directly from a sideline cut is worth two points. The game was launched in 1904 and is organised by the Camogie Association, which is based in Dublin. About one hundred thousand women play it, mostly in Ireland and among Irish communities abroad, and its showpiece is the annual All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship, whose final is played at Croke Park in September.