an infrequent consequence of contact sports despite protective equipment and stringent rules. Hurling, one of the two national sporting games of Ireland, is seen as one of the fastest field sports on earth and only played with a facemask and helmet as protection, making injury an unavoidable feature of the game without further padding. The two most common sites of injury in hurling are the fingers and the hamstrings. Hurling is also considered to have, "...a notable proportion of blunt scrotal trauma." History Hurling is older than the recorded history of Ireland. It is thought to predate Christianity, having come to Ireland with the Celts. The earliest written references to the sport in Brehon law date from the 5th century. Seamus King's book A History of Hurling references oral history going back as far as 1200 BCE of the game being played in Tara, County Meath. Hurling is related to the games of shinty that is played primarily in Scotland, cammag on the Isle of Man and bando which was played formerly in England and Wales. The tale of the Táin Bó Cuailnge (drawing on earlier legends) describes the hero Cúchulainn playing hurling at Emain Macha. Similar tales are told about Fionn Mac Cumhail and the Fianna, his legendary warrior band. Recorded references to hurling appear in many places such as the fourteenth century Statutes of Kilkenny and a fifteenth-century grave slab survives in Inishowen, County Donegal. The eighteenth century is frequently referred to as "The Golden Age of Hurling". This was when members of the Anglo-Irish landed gentry kept teams of players on their estates and challenged each other's teams to matches for the amusement of their tenants. One of the first modern attempts to standardise the game with a formal, written set of rules came with the foundation of the Irish Hurling Union at Trinity College Dublin in 1879. It aimed "to draw up a code of rules for all clubs in the union and to foster that manly and noble game of hurling in this, its native country". The founding of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in 1884 in Hayes Hotel, Thurles, Co Tipperary, ended decline by organising the game around a common set of written rules. In 1888, Tipperary represented by Thurles Blues beat Meelick of Galway to win the first All-Ireland Championship. However, the twentieth century saw Cork, Kilkenny as well as Tipperary dominate hurling