Torpeys hurley makers have created a hurling mindfulness initiative.
By Cian O’Connell
On a Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago hurley manufacturer Seán Torpey sat down, gathered his thoughts, and came up with an interesting concept.
That is how ‘hurling mindfulness’ started for Torpey. The act and art of hitting a sliotar against the wall dominated many childhood’s in Ireland, but in these uncertain times Torpey was adamant about the satisfaction that could be gleaned.
“It has really snowballed ever more than I'd have imagined,” Torpey explains. “I just sat down on a Saturday, said I would write this article and the interest in it has been unbelievable since.
“In the lockdown the GAA and hurling has been more a health and wellbeing type of exercise. You don't need a gym membership to have a hurley or a Gaelic Football.
“Not everybody has super facilities at home for them to be able to do other physical activity. If you have a wall in your back garden or locally it is very easy to access that during the times that we've had in the last couple of months.
“We have seen that in the past two and a half months our online store has been absolutely crazy. It wouldn't be elite players buying our most expensive hurleys, it would be people purchasing hurleys that might be coming at a bit cheaper a price point.
“They are simply getting a hurley to put in their hands again, rediscovering the power they had when they were a child or teenager simply pucking the ball and the feeling that gives somebody.”
Having spent time reflecting on the importance of hurling Torpey stresses the value of pucking, especially in this demanding spell.
“It is therapeutic in itself,” Torpey replies. “There are no distractions. If you don't concentrate on the ball you are running after the ball. Likewise striking the ball with the hurley, you have to concentrate on what you are doing for everything to align.
“The world we are living in now is all about distractions, your mobile phone is beeping. Life is a little bit faster maybe, we have discovered in the last two months that there might be a little bit more to life than just rushing around the place and being at every meeting.
“We have rediscovered that the most important thing is our health, families, everybody around us, and our communities. The GAA has led the way in that in how they have proceeded with the coronavirus.
“It is a credit to everybody and with the hurling mindfulness you can actually enjoy some time alone, being with your own thoughts, not being in the future, not being in the past, not critically analysing every aspect of your life, just being in a peaceful mindset where all that matters at that moment is the ball and the hurley.
Members of the Torpey family in Clare have been making hurleys since the 1930s.
“You are understanding that if you hit the ball very well you get a really good feeling from that which brings concentration and everything with it.”
It is something that people of all ages can do with Torpey highlighting the fact that his own father, John, still enjoys the odd puck around and that sport still carries such a vital role.
“We obviously make hurleys for some of the top inter-county players, the GAA is great with the competitive action of matches during the summer and everybody loves the buzz of Croke Park being full with 80,000,” Torpey adds.
“For everybody we didn't start playing hurling at eight years of age because we wanted the physical contact of hurling, we actually just played it because we wanted to master the skill of hitting a ball and the sense of achievement it brought us.
“That we could do something right and cool. Then we started to dream maybe that we could go on to play in Croke Park, everybody has that dream. When you grow older and get on in life it is something that people can do at a lot of ages.
“My father John, a great hurley maker, he still plays a bit of hurling, pucking a ball, and he is in his 70s. A lot of people his age are like that, they never lose the love of hitting that ball and connecting with our culture.
“The hurley and ball is in Irish people's culture. It is something we should really appreciate and I think we are appreciating it without the GAA matches far more than we ever did before.”
The skill and craft of producing hurleys has been passed through the generations in the Torpey family. “My grand uncle was the first person in the family to start making hurleys,” Torpey states. “He would have then shown my father when he was young how to make a great hurley and to get the ash tree from beside the banks of the river, and to cut it down and shape it out.
“My father got a love for that and he started the business in 1981. I suppose over the years we started investing in a lot more modern technology to make hurleys consistently and make the highest quality product that we can make.
“At the end of the day ash is the main timber used for hurleys and it is inconsistent. What we enjoy here is how we make something consistent from it.
“With an inconsistent material how can we make it for players, that at the level they play at, they have a correct product in their hands all of the time. That is something we are passionate about.”
While the Covid 19 pandemic ensured that all business was carried out online, Torpey has found a significant and increased demand in that area during the past decade.
Torpeys currently have an offer available for Grade 2 hurleys.
“We've put a lot of focus into our online platform over the last five years maybe and since I took over the business in 2013,” Torpey remarks.
“There would be an attitude that you need to come to our factory to pick hurleys, that you need to feel the weight of them, but with the modern technologies that are there now you can input all of that information to our online store.
“We can then do the selection process on your behalf. For us we take that very seriously because we know it is a leap of faith for any player not to come here.
“In the last number of years we've had numerous players in All Ireland finals, inter-county players, who haven't come to our factory to pick out a hurley.
“We have sent them that hurley, they have played with it on the field, and played exceptionally well in fairness to them. We take a great pride in that because we know that is another pressure we have relieved from the players minds.
“When players are at an elite level they can have an awful lot of demands happening. We want to make sure the hurley isn't something they are worried about. That is something very important for players.”
Business has also changed in that overseas orders have risen hugely too according to Torpey. “We have been selling hurleys overseas for the guts of 25 years,” Torpey admits.
“It has really started to really multiply in the last 10 years. That is due to a lot of Irish people having to move abroad. I think in the past, and I was abroad myself living and working in Germany, and now it is very easy to show somebody who isn't Irish what the sport of hurling is.
“All you have to do is take out your mobile phone to show them quite easily. Maybe 30 years ago in the early 90s you'd have actually to show them a hurley and it mightn't have looked as pleasant at that stage.
“When you can see the best players on your mobile phone it has led to a huge international take up of hurling. We are seeing orders anywhere from Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, I've sent hurleys to China and Dubai. It is brilliant, absolutely great.”
There might be no games on the agenda at the moment, but the benefits can be derived through going for a few pucks. The hurling mindfulness idea has most certainly been planted.
Torpeys are currently doing an offer for hurling mindfulness where you can get 50% discount on all Grade 2 hurleys. Click here for further details.
