In Irish mythology, the hurl was a heroic weapon and training tool as well as a sporting instrument.
One of its first appearances is in the boyhood deeds of Sétanta, where he uses his hurl to kill Culann’s hound, after which he receives the name Cú Chulainn, "Culann’s hound."
Cú Chulainn’s use of the hurl fits a wider Indo-European heroic pattern where a young warrior proves himself through a dangerous trial before entering fully into adult martial society.
The hurl symbolises youthful prowess, martial discipline, and the ancient Irish fusion of play and combat. It is the boy’s version of the spear or club – a sporting object that foreshadows the weapons of war.
When Irish nationalist Michael Cusack founded the Gaelic Athletic Association, he argued that a revival in Gaelic games like hurling would rekindle the strength and martial spirit of the Irish, for they were "invented by the most sublimely energetic and warlike race the world has ever known."
The Red Hand is a pre-Christian Irish symbol, connected to the mythological Eremon and the arrival of the Milesians. It’s become completely inverted, maybe irrecoverable. Now used by people who don’t even know what it means.
@jambron26 Looks like the Irish are getting all the credit, when in fact this was a massive let down. The unionists have completely capitalized on the momentum
I will never understand how the performatively anti-racist Republican-minded people in Belfast failed so badly to make something meaningful out of a terrible situation last night.
Some spoke openly about how stretched the RUC/PSNI appeared to be, yet the organised Republican response amounted to little more than online posturing. Last night put on full display the neutering of working-class Republican areas in the years following the Good Friday Agreement and the St Andrews Agreement. Communities that once had political instinct, discipline and direction now too often have only slogans and moral vanity.
There is another hypocrisy here too. Some of the loudest performative anti-racist "Republicans" spend much of their time speaking about unionists as though they should be deported wholesale because they are "planters". It does not strengthen your opposition to racism when you also make disparaging remarks about Protestant people, Ulster Scots culture and heritage or Protestant religious denominations. Bigotry does not cease to be bigotry simply because it is dressed up in Republican language and accompanied by shallow NGO talking points.
An utterly outrageous situation. It is little wonder that, in the eyes of many, organised Irish Republicanism is on its death bed.
Read this piece by @FearNaMuintire. The hour in Ireland demands Nationalists and Republicans united, not blaming one another as Ireland is taken from us
https://t.co/5SaZl1KwUL
There was a UVF unit that roamed about mutilating and torturing Irish Catholics in North Belfast in the middle 70s.
The scenes on a NB street tonight is no different to what our people suffered before. Any republican not willing to call this out for what it is isnt to be trusted
The response from the Irish people on this island, our fucking island, should make whatever the loyalists do pale in comparison.
We have to be the apex predator on migration
The response from the Irish people on this island, our fucking island, should make whatever the loyalists do pale in comparison.
We have to be the apex predator on migration