Full Contact with an Ancient Game

E ach of my children had been asking us about when they would see “Grandad” — my father who lives across the Atlantic Ocean. I think it had to do with the fact that their “pop-pop” — my father-in-law, who lived 20 minutes up the road — died last year. There was some business to settle back in Ireland, and so we went.

Even though I had never been in it until my 30s, arriving at my father’s home in Ireland is now a relief beginning with a ritual. We arrive on a red-eye. We drive from the airport, not very far to his town. I now switch to driving on the other side of the road rather easily. By the time we arrive, the sun is just rising. We settle around a big round kitchen table and begin to catch up.

In my childhood, Irish food was considered a joke — “medieval” for its reliance on grass-fed cows for meat and dairy, etc. Although the culinary tradition in Ireland isn’t as celebrated as that of other historically poor nations, the taste for organic food has caused a general reevaluation. The kettle goes on. Instead of coffee, we drink tea. The sausages that taste of white pepper and mace, rather than the sagey American type, hit the pan. I excitedly grab a loaf of crusty bread and look at the ingredients on the back — only four: wheat, yeast, water, salt. RFK Jr. would approve. And, tasting it, I approve. Nothing enriched, no riboflavin. Nothing brominated. The only question is whether I want butter or the fragrant, almost floral marmalade. The fresh eggs are pulled from the pantry closet, not the refrigerator.

After a long, languorous version of the full Irish, the kids and adult travelers take a short nap in the late morning. By the time we wake up, we’ll somehow have adjusted to the schedule kept in the home. Technically, it is five time zones ahead. But more informally, wake-up is two hours later by the clock. By evening, the chats will have gone on long enough that Hiberno-Irish phraseology is emitted from my mouth. “Was he giving out to you? Slagging you?” “Are you after the hurling?”

My half-brother was after the hurling. He gave up the game as a teenager, much to our father’s disappointment. But now, he’s returning to the local Gaelic Athletic Association club to try to play for the senior team. He’s tall — towering over me and my father — handsome and athletic. And yet whingeing about how far out of game shape and sore he is from even attempting it. His girlfriend starts “giving out” to him about it. Well, slagging him, to be more accurate.

This all stirred the curiosity of my children. One afternoon, Grandad looked up the nearest place to reliably buy a decent, well-sized hurl. It was Farrell Hurls, in Coolock — an area that became semi-famous on right-wing Twitter last year for its protests against mass immigration. “Coolock says no.” For the chance to spend time with her grandad, my daughter said yes. They got in the shop — a small factory, really — just before closing. They found and custom-wrapped these wooden axes for my two eldest. For my youngest, they didn’t have one made — so they grabbed some Irish ash, carved one out on the spot, stamped it, and gave it a green and white handgrip.

By evening, the whole family was out to harass my half-brother at his practice in the nearby park. For now, my children are my father’s only grandchildren. And as the late sun turned the sky a brilliant orange and purple over the parks in Malahide, he began instructing all three in this ancient game. My daughter, very athletic and handy because of her dance training, quickly learned how to take the flat wooden axe and use it to quickly lift the ball — a “sliotar” — from the ground to the air and then whack it with the right amount of force to reach her granddad. My youngest, more used to golf, began sending sliotars into the air like golf balls — a useful skill when you get a free hit. My middle child, slightly reluctant to take on a rival to his main passions — soccer and baseball — eventually caught the spirit and joined in too.

For the rest of our time there, my daughter took every opportunity to pass the ball around, to visit the local club’s “ball wall” and test her skills, to impress my father’s friends with her dexterity. “Too much talent to send back to America, Michael.”

Perhaps. But we’re home now — the hurls were squeezed into our luggage, barely. And I had the satisfaction of giving my children something I never had — a chance to play my father’s favorite sport with him, to hear him praise their skill, to be delighted in. To be told, and to know, in an uncomplicated way, they belong here too.