For those of you unfamiliar with the sport, Irish Gaelic handball is one of the most popular games in Ireland. The Irish natives call it wall handball, court handball, Irish handball, alley handball, or simply handball. In Irish Gaelic the sport is known as liathróid láimhe. While American handball is almost identical to the Irish version, squash, racquetball, and Basque pelota are very similar as well. The game itself can be played with two, three, or four individual players. As the name of the sport suggests, the ball is hit with the right or left hand only, there are no paddles, sticks, or racquets permitted on the court. The handball league in Ireland is organized by the GAA, also know officially as the Gaelic Athletic Association. There are various teams and leagues throughout the country, and many tiers of athletic expertise or mastery. The game as you can imagine is very tough physically, requiring top notch fitness.
The game of Irish handball is conducted on a court, also known as an alley. The typical international size of these courts is usually 12.2 by 6.1 meters, or 40 by 20 feet. The front court wall is generally 20 feet high, or 6.1 meters in height. This front court wall is the place where the ball must be hit off of. In Ireland however, the size of the courts varies from the international standard. In Ireland they are usually 60 by 30 feet, or roughly 18.3 by 9.15 meters. The Irish front walls are usually 30 feet high. The measurements listed here are the official sizes of the typical court, however it's important to state that many people in Ireland play urban handball, which is usually played in a car park, and the ball is then bounced off of the side of a building. There are no official urban handball tournaments or games, but they certainly make for an acceptable form of practice for more official and rule regulated games.
With regard to the objective of the game, a player must score a set amount of points before his opponent can do so. Only the person who serves the ball can score a point however. Each segment of the game where the server attempts to score a point, is called a rally. If one of the players wins a rally, but was not the person who served the ball, then they simply win the right to serve the next rally, as opposed to scoring an actual point. The person who serves the ball has two chances to hit the ball, which are from the service area, or off the front wall. The floor of each court is marked with red lines that indicate where the service area is, and where the half court line is. When the ball is hit, each player must take turns hitting it off of the front wall, but they can only do so before the ball bounces twice off the court floor. The majority of these games are played in four walled courts, however there are exceptions to that rule.
There are archaeological accounts of handball like games being played by various ancient civilizations. Egyptian hieroglyphs painted inside of the temple of Osiris, show the priests participating in something that looks similar to the modern form of the sport. Mesoamerican civilizations also played handball like games, and apparently they were a large part of their cultural traditions for hundreds of years. The modern game of handball and it's rules, were invented in Ireland and Scotland. The earliest historic reference to the game can be found in a manuscript from 1527, which forbid the citizens of Galway from using any of the building walls for handball use. Galway also had very strong trading links with the Basque regions, where a similar form a handball called pelota is played. Historians have concluded that one is derived from the other, but are uncertain as to whether Spain or Ireland was the first to create the modern version.
