St Kieran’s college crazy tradition for lads’ hurleys shows just how mad Kilkenny people are

It's different down there.

You can think your mad about hurling, you can think you love the game but Jesus, do you really love it as much as the people of Kilkenny? It's not just a game, it's not just a way of life, it's a full on religion down there. Kilkenny is a place where the majority of young boys and girls have a thirty something inch extension to their arms at almost all times. It's a place that you'd imagine would be very hard to grow up in if you didn't have an interest in hurling. What would you do? Who would you chat to? What they hell would you talk about? You could be the most normal youngster in the world, but without that hurl and ball, you'd probably be an outlier. Hurling is life throughout the county, and the HQ, the centre of it all, the breeding ground from which many of the stars of today have emerged, and the kings of the future are being fostered, is the Kilkenny city school St.Kieran's college. The most successful hurling school in the country. A school that has over 600 boys. A school that has Kilkenny senior stars as teachers. A  school that has won a record breaking 21 Croke cups. A school that is stone mad about hurling. A school where the youngsters aren't allowed to bring their hurleys into the shop at lunch-time for health and safety reasons. A school where you'll even find a young lad with a hurl on his Geography field trip. https://twitter.com/KieransCollege/status/915676321929482242 A school where these hurls are blessed by the local priest at the start of each year to ensure it's just as successful as the last one was. Now that's the environment all youngsters should be living in. Now that's pure class. https://twitter.com/KieransCollege/status/913086914160398341 That's St.Kieran's college stuff, that's just Kilkenny stuff.