camogie

Camogie is a women's field team sport played primarily in Ireland. It is the female variant of hurling and shares many rules, equipment, and objectives with the men’s game. The sport is governed by the Camogie Association (Cumann Camógaíochta), which was founded in 1904, and it oversees club and county camogie in Ireland and among Irish communities abroad.

Matches are played on a grass pitch with H-shaped goals at each end. Each side fields 15 players and uses a camán, a wooden stick, to strike a small ball called a sliotar. Scoring is recorded as goals and points: a goal, scored by getting the sliotar into the net, is worth three points; a point, scored by sending the ball over the crossbar, is worth one point. Senior camogie matches are typically 60 minutes long, divided into two halves of 30 minutes.

Camogie is organized at both club and county levels, with provincial competitions feeding into the All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship, the sport’s premier competition. The All-Ireland final is traditionally held at Croke Park in Dublin. The sport is amateur, with players balancing sport with work or studies, and protective equipment such as helmets with faceguards is standard.

While most activity occurs in Ireland, camogie clubs exist worldwide, reflecting the global reach of Gaelic games. The sport maintains a distinctive identity through its rules, terminology, and emphasis on the women’s game, while sharing cultural and historical ties with hurling and the broader Gaelic athletic tradition.