Throughout Ireland and Britain, there is a long tradition of carving lanterns from vegetables, particularly the turnip, mangelwurzel, and swede or rutabaga.

Considered a crop for cool-temperate climates, the mangelwurzel sown in autumn can be grown as a winter crop in warm-temperate to sub-tropical climates.

The 1830 book The Practice of Cookery includes a recipe for a beer made with mangelwurzel.

The mangelwurzel has a history in England of being used for sport, for celebration, for animal fodder and for the brewing of a potent alcoholic beverage.

The mangelwurzel is featured in the 1984 novel Jitterbug Perfume written by Tom Robbins.

The main character Alobar originally hails from a Slavic nation where beets are quite prevalent, and eventually the mangelwurzel is used as the base note in the mysterious perfume from which the book derives its name.

The mangelwurzel also had a role in the cult TV kids show as Worzel Gummidge's head, where it could often be heard to say things like " go boil your head.

A storage clamp is used in the agricultural industry for temporary storage of root crops such as potato, turnip, rutabaga, mangelwurzel, sugar beet etc.

In Ireland, Gaelic football and hurling matches are predominantly played on Sundays, with the first ( used to be second ) and fourth ( used to be third ) Sundays in September always playing host to the All-Ireland hurling and football championship finals, respectively.

That same year Lynch won his first senior county hurling championship with " the Glen.

Hurling and Gaelic football have become the most popular spectator sports in the Republic of Ireland ; 1, 962, 769 attendances were recorded at senior inter-county hurling and football championship games in 2003 while 60 % of all attendances to sports events in the Republic of Ireland were at Gaelic games, with 34 % of the total going to Gaelic football and 23 % to hurling.

Birr also has a very successful hurling team, Birr GAA, winning the all-Ireland championship four times.

Although it has fielded hurling teams on occasions, it is primarily a Gaelic football club and, after winning the intermediate championship in 2003, Saint Senan's were narrowly beaten in the final of the 2006 Limerick Senior Football Championship.

The local Gaelic football and hurling team is the Castlebar Mitchels club ; a club with a proud and illustrious past, including 27 Mayo senior football championships and one Mayo senior hurling championship titles.

He was twelve years-old when he played in his first competitive game, a minor hurling championship game against Sarsfield's, and surprisingly he was chosen as goalkeeper.

Ring subsequently played minor championship hurling with the St. Enda's club in Midleton.

That same year Ring and his brothers were key players when Cloyne won the East Cork junior hurling championship following a defeat of Bride Rovers.

A ninth successive championship proved beyond Glen Rovers, however, the club continued to dominate the local hurling scene in Cork for the rest of the decade.

After a one-year absence from Cork's hurling showpiece, defeats of Blackrock, Imokilly and St. Finbarr's in the respective championship deciders of 1948, 1949 and 1950 brought Ring's county championship winners ' medal tally to six.

Ring won a second consecutive National League medal in 1941, however, that year's hurling championship was severely hampered due to an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Munster and Leinster.

That defeat saw the break-up of the great four-in-a-row team of the 1940s and was followed by four lean years of championship hurling for Cork.

In 1974 Ring became a selector with the Cork senior hurling team, however, it was an unsuccessful year in the championship for his county.

He announced his retirement from inter-county hurling at the start of the championship in 2006.

Also the GAA plays an international Hurling hybrid match with Scotland's national shinty team ( although Ireland do not select players from the best hurling teams in Tier One of the All-Ireland championship for this game ).

The local hurling team have won four County Championships, the last in 1974, and in more recent times their minor teams have had great success, winning the minor county championship in 1999 and again in 2008.

In 2006 the club won its first senior hurling championship beating St. Mullins in the final and repeated the achievement again in 2007 beating the same opposition in the final.

Heffernan also won six senior county championship hurling titles in 1953, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1959 and 1962.

In 2004, at the age of 74, Heffernan was in charge of the club's under 15 hurling team, which, with a late free from Oliver McElvaney, won a memorable championship final against Cuala, having defeated Ballyboden in the semi final.

and then I was adding my own voice to the crescendo of sound, hurling more vile language than I ever thought I knew, sobbing and shouting, and aware that if I had passed water before, it was not enough, for my pants were soaking wet.

In Egypt, 4000-year-old carvings feature teams with sticks and a projectile, hurling dates to before 1272 BC in Ireland, and there is a depiction from c. 600 BC in Ancient Greece where the game may have been called kerētízein or kerhtízein ( κερητίζειν ) because it was played with a horn or horn-like stick ( kéras, κέρας ) In Inner Mongolia, China, the Daur people have been playing beikou, a game similar to modern field hockey, for about 1, 000 years.

" This was referring to the game of hurling and the hook made it likely the stick was like the ones used in shinty.

Gaelic games, especially hurling are popular and the Gaelic Athletic Association was founded in the province.

The game was derived from the same root as the Irish game of hurling but has developed different rules and features.

When the Gaelic Athletic Association was founded in 1884 the English-origin name " hurling " was given to the men's game.

On the way Conchobar saw his young nephew Sétanta playing hurling, and was so impressed he invited the boy to join him at the feast.

Although one of the strongest teams in the country during the early years of the GAA, the game in the county was overshadowed by hurling throughout the 20th century and its last success in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, the Sam Maguire Trophy, was in 1896.

Rugby union, soccer, swimming and handball were all favourite pastimes for Lynch, however it was the sports of Gaelic football and hurling where Lynch showed particular flair.

By the late 1930s Lynch was a dual player with the Cork senior hurling and senior football teams.

In 1942 Lynch was selected as Cork hurling captain once again.

A fifth All-Ireland hurling medal was later added to his collection following a defeat of old rivals Kilkenny I the final.

His contribution to the game of hurling was first recognised when he was named as the " Hurling Captain of the Forties ".

" I had hoped we were hurling a wildcat into the shore, but all we got was a stranded whale ", he said.

Semple Stadium, where the centenary All-Ireland hurling final was played, is the second largest GAA stadium in Ireland with a capacity of 53, 500, second only to Croke Park in Dublin.

Though the town was traditionally associated with Gaelic football, with six teams providing ample outlets for its youngsters, it wasn ’ t until 1960 that hurling took its foothold, with much due to local man Oliver “ Hopper ” McGrath ’ s contribution to the county ’ s All-Ireland Hurling Final triumph over the then-champions Tipperary.

Wexford had a brilliant hurling team in the 1950s which included the famous Rackard Brothers, Nicky, Bobby, and Willie, Art Foley who was the goalkeeper, Ned Wheeler, Padge Kehoe, Tom Ryan, Tim Flood, Jim Morrissey, Nick O Donnell, to name but a few.

The initial plan was to resurrect the ancient Tailteann Games and establish an independent Irish organisation for promoting athletics, but hurling and Gaelic football eventually predominated.

The extinction of the Gaelic games of hurling and the native style of football was averted in the nineteenth century.

Knowing that Zhang Liao was a righteous man, Guan Yu refrained from hurling insults at his enemy, nor did he go out to meet the attack.