About

Poc Fada is the Irish version of Golf, whereby a player uses a hurl or hurley to hit a sliotar of ball up the side of a mountain and down the other side in as few pucks or goes as possible. It is mentioned in the legend of Setanta, whereby the hero uses his hurl or hurley to hit the ball over the Cooley Mountains in Co. Louth on his way to a feast of the King of Ulster in Armagh.

Poc Fada Golf is the brainchild of Julian Gaisford-St. Lawrence, whose family built Howth Castle, and uses the same principle but on a golf course, with bigger holes. It is aimed more at families as a day out, and it doesn’t take as long as Golf to complete a round. Each hole has a par as in Golf.

It is in the tradition of other GAA Compromise or International rules sports, such as International Rules Football (Gaelic Football & Australian Football), Hurling-Shinty (Ireland v Scotland), Handball-Pelota (Ireland v Basque Country), Rounders-Baseball (Irish teams v American teams) and Hurlacrosse (Hurling teams v Lacrosse teams).

The course was opened in 2015 at Deer Park Golf, in Co. Fingal (North County Dublin), and is run under the stewardship of Humphrey Kelleher, the chairman of the National Poc Fada Committee.

References

[1] Bailey, Ryan (2015) “Have you heard of Poc Fada Golf? It’s a sport now and Ireland’s first course has just opened” The 42.ie [Internet] Available from: https://www.the42.ie/poc-fada-golf-course-deer-park-2247353-Jul2015/ [Accessed 15 March 2020]

Images

[2] GAA Poc Fada Twitter Account (2018) GAA Poc Fada Logo [Internet] Available from: https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/975524662636613632/-7z4rlL3_400x400.jpg [Accessed 9 June 2018]

[3] YourDaysOut (2020) Deer Park Golf FootGolf and Poc Fada | Things to Do in DubliN [Internet] Available from: https://yourdaysout.com/uploads/articleimages/72/72ec62f4b80966f2e1ba46df14c6c1f9.JPG [Accessed 15 March 2020]

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Judith Burns, Jean-Paul O’Flynn and Rose McCabe.

About this document

Researched, Compiled and Written by Enda Mulcahy for the

Eirball | GAA World Archive

Last Updated: 17 November 2020

(c) Copyright Enda Mulcahy and Eirball 2020

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