Hurling has a long and fascinating past. It has been played for centuries, but had a renewal of popularity beginning in the late-nineteenth-century due to the Gaelic revival.
The Gaelic Revival, or Irish Revival, was a cultural movement that put emphasis on the revival of the Irish language and Irish folklore, including sports, music and literature. The Gaelic Revival became tied to nationalist sentiments as the political and cultural pressures that led to the Irish War of Independence mounted.
Sport especially played a role in distinguishing the Irish from the English. The Gaelic Athletic Association was founded in 1884 with the purpose of promoting indigenous Irish sports, such as hurling, camogie and Gaelic football.
We can see examples of the politicization of Gaelic sports in John Strachan and Claire Nelly's Advertising, Literature, and Print Culture in Ireland.
"Sport was one place, according this optimistic account, where the nation – Catholic and Protestant alike – could unite in a common ideological space after the horrors of the 1840s. ‘Ireland’, it declared, ‘emerging from her miseries, is boldly arraying herself in the brightest of Emerald Greens’, and the country’s sporting life could be a force for national unity, bringing together all ‘the genius and talent of our Native Land’." (Strachan and Nelly 2012, 90-91)