Up Cork part 2

The most appalling morning - rain, hail, thunder and I nearly didn't go across the mountain for my hair appointment. I did though, and Schull (and everywhere else) was bedecked in Cork colours - red and white, including my lovely hairdressers - Niamh, Mags and Kate - sporting Cork shirts. The occasion for all this redness is the All Ireland Hurling Championship, going on as I type - Cork v Clare. The original final was a couple of weeks ago and was a draw and this is the play off. It's tense - current score 18 to Clare, 13 to Cork. Hurling, in case you don't know, is a fast and ferocious game played with a flattened hockey stick. Like Irish football, the rules look mercifully sparse.

It's an ancient game, one of the most loved Celtic heroes Cúchulainn was red hot at hurling. Here's how he got his name:

At first the son of Dechtire and Sualtam was called Setanta. As a child he was the strongest of all his peers and won all the sports competitions. One day while playing Hurley single-handed against a team of other boys and beating them, he was summoned to the court of King Conchobar so that he might attend a feast at the house of the sidhe blacksmith Culann. Setanta promised to come along as soon as his game was finished.
When the Ulster champions entered the smith's hall, the king gave permission for Culann to let loose his fierce guard hound, forgetting that Setanta had not yet arrived. When Setanta came into Culann's front yard the hound attacked him fiercely, Setanta reacted quickly and hurled his sliotar (Hurley ball) into the mouth of the hound choking him, he then grabbed him by his hind legs and smashed out his brains on a rock.
Culann the chief smith was enraged to find that his guard dog had been killed. Setanta apologised and promised to find another hound and train it for Culann but in the meantime he himself would act as Culann's guard. Thus from that time onwards he was known as Cúchulainn - the hound of Culann.

It's half time and it's getting rough!
I wonder who's sponsoring Cork???
Up Cork part 1
Edit: Clare won, they were flying!