HENRICO COUNTY, Va. — On most nice evenings, you’ll find folks playing sports or working out on the fields behind Hungary Creek Middle School in Henrico County.
Some nights, you may notice something that looks, from a distance, like a lacrosse practice, or maybe field hockey.
But as you get closer, you’ll discover a truly unique game that is one of the oldest in the world, being played by a group of young men and women who are among the best in the nation.
Hurling is an ancient Gaelic sport that historians say the Irish have been playing for at least 3,000 years.
“They always call it the fastest sport on grass, because the ball is just constantly moving up and down the field,” Connor Brogan, coach of the Richmond Battery GAA club, said. “There’s just never a dull moment.”
The object of the game is to use a wooden stick called a hurley to hit a leather ball called a sliotar between your opponent’s goalposts. A shot into the net is worth three points, but you can also score by hitting the sliotar through the uprights, like a field goal in football. That’s worth one point.
Despite its old age, hurling is relatively new to many, especially here in Central Virginia. That’s why the members of the Richmond Battery are trying to get people charged up about this beautiful and violent thing they love so much.
“Everybody that I feel like we've talked to, it's like, we start showing them videos, they're like, whoa, like, that's a crazy sport,” Jenn D’Augustine, vice chair of the club, said. “And I'm like, you're right, come on out. And most people get hooked after the first time they play.”
The Battery formed in 2014 as a non-profit hurling and camogie club, camogie being a nearly identical women’s version of the game.
Like many of the people they now recruit, D’Augustine and her boyfriend, Matthew Batdorf, were introduced to the club while having a pint.
“We were at the Veil, and the team came up and kind of just walked up to me and my girlfriend and asked if we'd ever heard about it,” Batdorf said. “So, from that moment on, we fell in love with it, and have been playing ever since.”
While it might look complicated, hurling is apparently not hard to learn.
“If you have any kind of athletic ability - we've got people from baseball, we've got people from field hockey, we've got people that play table tennis - and they can come out and still pick it up,” Batdorf said.
But it is definitely not a sport for the weak of heart. Expect some bumps and bruises, and be prepared for lots of cardio.
Tournament play in particular can be ferocious at times, but the sidelines are always supportive.
“It does get intense, it has its moments,” Shelby Barber, wife of Richmond Battery chair Kris Barber, said. “But for the most part, we've found a real family in the sport. It really is just a fun party at the end of the day.”
Over the past decade the Battery has traveled across the U.S., and they’ve won a lot of games, their biggest victory happening last summer.
In August, the Battery traveled to Philadelphia to compete in the United States Gaelic Athletic Association Finals. The club battled all the way to Junior-D national championship match, where they defeated the Seattle Gaels by a score of 27-1.
“I’m extremely proud,” said Brogan. “My wife could tell you that I cried after we won.”
An amazing achievement for the 12-year-old club, especially when you consider how many new players were on the roster.
“To go from like never playing, to being in it for three months, and then going to a national championship and winning their first national title is incredible,” said Barber.
And while being able to hoist a championship trophy is electrifying, that’s not the thing that keeps the men and women of the Battery energized.
“Ultimately, they're some of the greatest people that I've met since I've been living in Richmond,” said D’Augustine.
“It’s the camaraderie,” said Batdorf. “The team bond is pretty intense. It's something that I had been missing for all of my early 30s and 20s, for the most part.”
“So that, coupled with just the athleticism, and being able to shoulder somebody, feels pretty good.”
The Richmond Battery will have a booth at the Church Hill Irish Festival on March 21 and 22. They invite everyone to stop by, and they promise not to give you a shoulder check.
Learn more about the Battery here: https://richmondbatterygaa.com/
CBS 6 provides Central Virginia with the most experienced local TV sports coverage in town. Count on Lane Casadonte and Sean Robertson for the most in-depth local sports coverage.
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy. To learn more about how we use AI in our newsroom, click here.
