Irish Road Bowling

Festival Location: All Areas Ireland

Festival Type(s): Bizarre Festivals, Bizarre Sports Events, Ball Sports Events

Irish Road Bowling Media:

Irish Road Bowling

By: © Michael J. Rosen 2010

"Do Not Break Your Butts."

- from the rules of West Virginia Road Bowling

They call it "bowling," yet it has nothing to do with glossy white pins, oiled wooden lanes, or shoes, colorfully designed for humiliation, that have been worn by a dozen other strangers that day.

Some liken it to golf, but don't go looking for greens of gratuitously pampered grass and don't drag along those overly-priced divot makers you call your set of clubs.

It says "road," and - well, actually, the sport is played on roads: Winding country roads with no "closed course" precautions taken to block tractors or delivery trucks from driving onto the playing course.

Irish road bowling has been played as early as the 17th century in Europe and no later than the Civil War in America. Indeed, Union and Confederate troops of Irish descent were said to have enjoyed the game with one another between battles. (Tis true, tis true: Politics was more civilized centuries ago, when men could turn off hot buttons like succession and abolition for a few hours of intra-national good sportsmanship and fun.) Today, Ireland hosts the annual European Bowling Championships, and three American Irish road bowling clubs, including the West Virginia Irish Road Bowling Association, host competitions as well. (Why road bowling caught on in "The Switzerland of the United States" is a true mystery; it's not as if "Take me home, country roads" - John Denver was Irish!)

The goal of the competition is to see which individual or team can bowl an iron ball that's about the same circumference as a baseball - but five times the weight - across the finish line of a designated course in the fewest number of rolls. To bowl the "bullet," as it's called, players take a sprinting start up to the designated place in the road, a mark called the "butt." After the run, a player leaps in the air and releases the bullet underhanded without going past the mark ("breaking his butt"), or merely damaging an adjacent spectator's knee.

The best players and teams generally designate someone to be the "road shower" (this has nothing to do with shampooing or conditioning the interstate). This is the person who stands ahead of the thrower to "show 'er or 'im" the best path for the bullet and who must be adept at what's known as "getting out of the way." Players then navigate their bullets along a one-to-three-mile course, playing caroms off potholes, rummaging through curbside shrubbery to find their bullets, and even lofting the bullet into the air when faced with an especially tight turn in the course.

Most skilled players complete a course in 20 to 25 bowls. If two players cross the finish line in the same number of shots, the bowler whose bullet is farthest past the line wins - wins for himself, yes, but also for those who've bet thousands of Euros on him, cheering, "Faugh a ballach!" That's Irish for "clear the way!"

There's a cannonball barreling towards your ankles right now at the Irish Road Bowling Association web site or across the pond in West Virginia.

No Dribbling the Squid

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