Road Bowls Sporting Traditions

Road bowling predates football, Gaelic football, soccer,

probably rugby.

In Armagh, it's part and parcel of who we are,

it's part of our identity. You grew up with road bowls.

We refer to road bowling here in Armagh as bullets.

CHEERING

People outside Armagh - if you talk about bullets,

they don't have a notion what you're talking about.

Every shot's different, every course is different, that's where the challenge comes in.

The rivalry between Cork and Armagh is fierce. It's unbelievable.

The one thing that we train hard to do every year

is to beat our Cork opponents.

DISTANT SHOUTING

I'll give 3-2 the score.

I'll take 7-4.

I'll give 3-2 the score. I'll take 7-4.

We're unique in many ways. There's no admission charge.

It's free to all-comers.

You just land, you go out the road, it's there, you walk, you enjoy it.

We don't charge in.

We've no changing rooms, no equipment.

All we have is a pair of runners, a T-shirt and a road bowl.

The aim is to start at a starting line,

travel through to the finish

in the least number of throws.

Each go will be marked by a marker on the road

and then your next shot starts

wherever your last bullet ended.

A proper road bowling road is a road

that has a lot of twisty bends on it.

Not big, long straights because anybody can throw a straight bowl,

but you have to negotiate the corners.

That's right.

You generally have someone

back at the tip who's very familiar with the road,

and who's a calming influence.

Let's keep back.

Further up the road, you'll have another person standing,

legs astride, and he's basically a target for the player.

The player is aiming to play the bowl directly

to the shower on the road to gain maximum distance from the shot.

The Bol Fada - that's actually the curtain raiser

for our championships.

What happens there is the All-Ireland and Ulster and Munster

champions from the previous season

would all play against each other in a big tournament.

We get to see our players, what way they've wintered.

Have they wintered all right?

Are they strong, have they been back training for a while?

How they're bowling.

That gives us an indication as to how they may bowl in the championship,

and people follow them, then, throughout the championship.

CHEERING

ALL TALK AT ONCE

I give 3-2 the score. I give 3-2 the score.

Anybody want it...?

'There's substantial sums of money wagered on the bullets.

'It's a gentleman's agreement when someone has a bet with you.'

There is it there for you. There is it there for you.

'You may not see any money changing hands,

'someone might just say, "OK, that's a bet."

CHEERING

'You'll hear nothing about it till the end of score,

'then you'll see the person who won getting paid out.'

Rightly so!

CHEERING

When I was a child at school here, at the college, out on a Sunday walk,

we usually had a priest along with us,

I used to watch the game and mingle with the crowd,

and got so worked up with the excitement.

CHEERING

When I looked around, all the other boys had disappeared,

and I was going to run into trouble for coming back on my own

to the college. So that's my first encounter with road bowls.

Bowles came to Ireland from England

and was especially associated with the weavers,

so it was a game that was much played in Lancashire.

When it came to Ireland, it was picked up by the Irish

and, naturally, it was very much associated here

in Ireland with the weaving.

The valley is dotted with mills, Scotch mills especially,

and right on in to Armagh where you had a mill at Umgola,

and a mill down at Mill Row.

It's easy to see how it was part of community life here.

If you can imagine how they would come out during breaks

and have a game of bullets on the roads.

All these little houses were grouped around the mill.

Each had their own little culture.

You'd have got different teams, if you like,

you were from the upper end or the lower end,

the Navan Street boys or the Mill Row boys.

The road bowls were a poor man's game.

It was played by everybody,

Catholics and Protestants.

It being Sunday, the road was pretty clear of traffic,

but sometimes, a car or bicycle would pass.

Men from cottages along the way joined the crowd.

The road was soon black with people.

Finally, the books were closed at a figure never before equalled

within the memory of the oldest man present.

?225 aside.

The throwers peeled off their coats, a coin was spun

and to mark the butt, a handful of grass was thrown down onto the road.

It didn't always please certain people,

for instance, the churches.

Gambling was very much associated with the bullets,

and the breaking of the Sabbath.

The very first mention of the game of long bullets

is from the records of the Common Council of Londonderry.

It prohibits the game of long bullets on the ramparts of Derry

and a fine of five shillings,

and that kind of attitude went on right on up to the '30s and '40s.

All the Row fellows began hunching up their shoulders

and clapping their hands together.

"Let's cut out the codding and get down to business.

"Show us what the outer Row is made of."

All his strength went into the throw,

his face convulsed.

He gave a gasping grunt and the bullet left his hand like a rocket.

A warning cry rang out,

and those on the footpath scattered like blown chaff.

The bullet mounted the path and skimmed along like a living thing.

The din became deafening.

It swelled like the tumult of a great storm-wracked sea.

People whistled, screamed,

shouted hysterically and tossed their hats in the air.

Finally, it trickled to a halt,

and sat dead in the very centre of the road.

This stone has been placed here, maybe 15 years ago,

to commemorate Joe McVeigh's fantastic feat.

Joe played from Knappagh crossroads to this point in 22 shots.

It's clearly written there for everyone to see,

bowls folk and non-bowls folk alike.

The record has stood the test of time.

The great Mick Barry, Danny McParland, Michael Toal, Harry Toal,

they've all come and attempted to beat this record.

Some have got very close.

I know some have covered the course in 23 shots,

but no-one's ever made it in 22, and I'd suggest no-one ever will.

Your sport is built on the great players.

Every young fellow running around with a road bowl in his hand, he wants to be Mick Barry,

he wants to be Michael Toal, he wants to be Danny McParland.

Just the same as children playing soccer want to be David Beckham.

What we decided to do in Armagh

here to encourage the sport was to start a youth programme,

to have a new generation of youth coming through, new road bowlers.

Road bowling's all about timing, so the coaches here,

what they're doing with their people here today,

is teaching them to run to the butt fast, to jump and to co-ordinate

their jump with the swing of their arm,

their feet touching the ground as the bowl is delivered.

That might sound simple -

that's incredibly difficult to do if you've never done it.

They have to learn how to encounter corners,

how to play the shot round the corner to achieve the maximum distance.

To spin the bullet,

it means that you're holding the bullet.

When you let the bullet go, it's spinning out of your hand to the right,

which means when it hits the ground, it's actually turning right.

If you're pulling the bullet, you're holding the bowl in your hand,

and when you deliver it, it's coming off your index finger

and it's turning to the left.

There's a lad, he's six years old, he's throwing bowls here

with the people of 14 and he's holding his own.

These are the people that are gonna take our sport into the next century.

These are the people that we're gonna coach,

that will play and win All-Ireland for Armagh.

It's like anything else,

it's a sport that's handed down from one generation to another, in families.

If you went round these people tonight,

you'd find that their fathers and their forefathers all played road bowls.

Mick!

Hey, that's my boy!

Good shot.

CHEERING

CHEERING DROWNS SPEECH

'A lot of the boys had him backed, a few pounds on him,

'and he came through with the goods and won.

'My own experience was it was probably the best day of my life.'

Thanks, Dennis.

You'd think I had thrown it!

Invited guests, ladies and gentlemen...

You're all very welcome here tonight to our 2005 annual All-Ireland presentation.

We've been treated to a fantastic weekend of top-class bowling...

Tonight, they'll discuss the high points of the weekend,

the great shots they played, the shots that they misplayed

and how that would have changed the outcome of the score.

There are older people - they'll be comparing the ability

of young people to the ability of great players years ago.

We're a minority sport, so to be part of that minority sport,

you're an important person - especially if you're young, growing up with a bit of talent,

then you're extra-special because your parents have played bowls. They see something special

in their son or their daughter and they want to bring that out in them.

When you come in here tonight,

those people who competed against each other so furiously all weekend

sit down together around a table, tell a story, have a drink.

They're big, big friends, and when those people come back to Cork,

we'll be wishing them well and we'll be saying,

"We look forward to seeing you next year."

We will look forward to it -

we have great friends in Cork, Cork have great friends here.

Even though the rivalry is unbelievable,

so is the camaraderie.

We're all big friends,

we're all just members of this big family, you know?

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