South Africa
Soldiers who served in the Irish Brigade during the Anglo-Boer War are believed to have played the game on the veld. Immigrants from County Wicklow who had arrived to work in the explosives factory in Umbogintintwini formed a team c. 1915-1916. A major burst of immigration in the 1920s led to the foundation of the Transvaal Hurling Association in Johannesburg in 1928. Games were traditionally played in a pitch on the site of the modern day Johannesburg Central Railway Station every Easter Sunday after Mass.
In 1932, a South African hurling team sailed to Ireland to compete in the Tailteann Games, where they carried a banner donated by a convent of Irish nuns in Cape Town. On their arrival, they were personally received by Ireland's President, Éamon de Valera.
South African hurling continued to prosper until the outbreak of World War II, which caused immigration from Ireland to cease and made it impossible to import equipment. Games of hurling and Gaelic football were occasionally sponsored by the Christian Brothers schools in Boksburg and Pretoria well into the 1950s. Both games have all but ceased to be played.
Read more about this topic: Hurling Outside Ireland
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