We take a look at some of the more unique and emerging sports in our city.
A county that’s had some of the country’s finest athletes, Dublin has been home to some top class talents across all sports. It’s witnessed some of the biggest stars of the world’s most popular sports, and inspired generations of athletes. But now there’s some different sports that people are drifting towards.
First up, we met with the Dublin County Darts League. Following the rise of teen phenom Luke Littler in the last 13 months, the sport has received a new breath of life, with many picking it up for the first time.
Despite that, Tom Mahon, says a lot of the more old school players are still in attendance in their leagues and tournaments.
“There is still a big element of your grandfather, your father. Some of us still play with family members. It’s good to get out with them at the night time, you know, in the evenings when you might not see them from one end of the week to the other.”
With more and more young people taking up the sport, Geoff Kinsella says more should be done to encourage people to get involved:
“Every classroom in Ireland should have some sort of a dartboard, whether it’s a virtual one or a real one, because it teaches kids how to count. Kids don’t know how to count anymore. If a child goes into a shop and somebody hands them change of 20 euros, most of them wouldn’t know how much change they were supposed to get. But the darts players do.”
(Image via Getty)
We then met with an American Football team based in Castleknock – the West Dublin Rhinos. Despite being a small league, there’s still a sizeable number of teams around – with two divisions in place across the country.
One of the leagues long-time members Darragh Ennis, says despite the league getting decent numbers, a lot of people aren’t even aware it exists.
“They don’t know that American football is even played over here, they instantly go to ‘oh, is that the the NFL that plays on a Sunday night?'”
It does take people by surprise, but then when you get to talk to them about it, they understand it’s like playing soccer or GAA at the weekend as well. We’re just trying to get more people playing as much as we can. I think we have four teams in Dublin alone at the moment, which is great, because the population of Dublin is so big.”
One of the newer members is Chris Matondo Kanamba, who got started after seeing a flyer at his college.
“So far now it’s been amazing, really. I usually, like, I would be on TikTok, scrolling and I’d see highlights of Tyreke Hill. And from there, I was like, you know, I want to have a go at it. And honestly, I’d been debating on it for quite a long time. Then I found out about this, and was like ‘I only have one life’, [I] might as well just go for it.”
Finally, we joined a lightsaber fencing club that operates out of East Wall. Taking inspiration from various martial arts, as well as from the Star Wars movies, Ludo Sport has grown to be an international sport, with events held around the world every year.
Despte it’s success elsewhere, it’s still relatively small here in Dublin. But that hasn’t put people off of keeping up their newfound sport.
Adam Burke is one of the members, and says he loves it:
“It’s quite difficult, but it’s quite rewarding. It’s one of those things where the more effort you put in, the more you get out of it. But in terms of, was it easy to stick with? Absolutely, I fell in love from day one, even though I wasn’t quite so good. But that came with time, a mix of practice and training.
“We have principles in the sport; service, care and respect. One of the principles of service is to push each other to the best of their ability, that everyone’s due to techniques, to the best that we are fighting to the best of our ability, inspiring and just encouraging each other every step of the way. And that makes it for a very welcome community, and a very enjoyable sport,” he added.
