Traditional Sports in Northern Ireland

Football

• The Northern Ireland national football team represents Northern Ireland in international football association football. From 1882 to 1921 all of Ireland was represented by a single side, the Ireland national football team, organised by the Irish Football Association.

• It should not be confused with the football association of Ireland, which is the organising body in the Republic of Ireland.

• The IFA was formed in 1880 by football clubs mostly in the Belfast area• A meeting was called by Clintonville of other football clubs that followed

the rules set out by the Scottish Football Association.• The IFA is the fourth oldest national football association in the world after

England Scotland and Wales

Rugby

• Rugby union, often referred to simply as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century

• William Webb Ellis is often credited with the invention of running with the ball in hand in 1823 at Rugby School when he allegedly caught the ball while playing football and ran towards the opposition goal

• Historically an amateur sport, in 1995 the International Rugby Board removed restrictions on payments to players, making the game openly professional at the highest level for the first time

• The IRB has been the governing body for rugby union since its formation in 1886. rugby union spread from the home nations of Great Britain and Ireland, and was absorbed by many of the countries associated with the British Empire

Hurley

• Hurley is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic and Irish origin, administered by the Gaelic Athletic Association

• The object of the game is for players to use a wooden stick called a Hurley to hit a small ball called a sliotar between the opponents goalpost either over the crossbar for one point, or under the crossbar into a net guarded by a goalkeeper for one goal which is equivalent to 3 points

• A player who wants to carry the ball for more than 4 steps has to bounce or balance it in the end of the stick and the ball can only be handed twice while in his possession

Boxing

• Boxing is a combat sport in which two people engage in a contest of strength, speed, speed, reflexes, endurance, and will by throwing punches with gloved hands against each other

• The birth hour of boxing as a sport may be its acceptance by the ancient Greeks as an Olympic game as early as 687BC. Boxing evolved from 16th and 18th century prize-fights, largely in Great Britain, to the forerunner of modern boxing in the mid 19th century, again initially in Great Britain and later in the US

• The modern Olympic movement revived interest in amateur sports, and amateur boxing became an Olympic sport in 1908.

• Professional boxing remains by far the most popular form of the sport globally, though amateur boxing is dominant in Cuba and some former soviet republicans