In the height of summer, hurling rivals football for popularity.
The big games attract similar audiences: the All-Ireland hurling final between Limerick and Kilkenny drew 1.12 million viewers on RTÉ, compared to 1.25 for the Dublin-Kerry Gaelic football decider.
The hurling semi-finals attracted crowds of 59,739 and 48,360 to Croke Park and the football last four saw 82,000 (Dublin v Monaghan and the Tailteann Cup final) and 43,192 (Derry v Kerry) visit GAA HQ.
Limerick's first Munster championship defeat in four seasons, at the hands of Clare, not being live on free-to-air TV became a topic of national debate.
But that interest in the elite level of the sport does not translate to nationwide participation, in which hurling lags behind football.
Only 11 teams play in the Leinster and Munster senior hurling championships, compared to 33 in the football provincials. Just 13 counties have won the All-Ireland hurling title - compared to 19 in football - and Laois, London and Kerry's successes came well over a century ago.
Such is the relative weakness in the small-ball code in Connacht and Ulster that their provincial championships no longer take place and Galway and Antrim (sporadically) have competed in Leinster since 2009. The second-tier Joe McDonagh finalists also enter the Liam MacCarthy competition but that is expected to change for 2024.
Sport Ireland figures suggest around 1% of the population play hurling, compared to 2% for Gaelic football. Various theories have been advanced for the disparity in numbers, from tradition to the ease of learning the game and the need for extra equipment.
A multiple All-Ireland SHC-winning selector and U21 manager with his native Kilkenny, former national hurling development manager Martin Fogarty believes that could change but only if a concerted effort is made to increase the number of participating clubs in the less-served counties.
"It's definitely possible," he told RTÉ Radio's 1 Sunday Sport. "It’s happening. In Fermanagh for example, a couple of years ago there was just one adult club there but seven underage units. So huge interest.
"But the biggest problem facing clubs in those counties is the lack of games because of a lack of teams.
"If you draw a line from Galway to Dublin, and take out Antrim and Down, I call it the wilderness of hurling because all of those counties [north of the line] have nine or less adult hurling clubs. Leitrim have two, Cavan and Longford with just three.
"It’s impossible to play the game when you don’t have teams but the good news is that in all of those counties there are units starting up. But against the current really because there is very little encouragement or support for them.
"At inter-county level, those teams are tremendous. The standard of play based on maybe three, four or five clubs is unbelievable. So the aim long-term has to be that say Longford, with three clubs, have to look to have six, 12 etc.
"But as an organisation we really have to get behind them. I can see the problem, I can see the solutions. But who is going to make it happen? It’s everybody’s business and it’s nobody’s business."
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Fogarty believes that responsibility for hurling development needs to be taken out of the hands of county boards where the football tradition is much stronger.
"The counties in greatest need are all football counties and I don’t blame any county chairman for not developing hurling because they have enough to do to develop the football," he said.
"We need a team of hurling people, who are answerable to themselves and not county football boards, with all respect, to get into these counties and consolidate the clubs that are there already by providing what is there in the Táin Óg [cross-border league] for underage and the Cú Chulainn for adult competitions. To really develop those competitions so that every club has a meaningful competition every year.
"While that’s going on then to nurture the underage units and try and bring them to adulthood. The big one then is to grow new units. That’s going to time, effort and a bit of funding. But it can definitely be done because it’s happening in spite of everything.
"It's not a huge sum to grow a new hurling club, maybe two or three thousand a year will get them hurls or helmets. A bit of support to get them going. If you have an area where you have say five clubs and you can build that to ten, suddenly you're self-sustaining, you can have a league and the whole thing will snowball. Suddenly your Sligo county team, instead of feeding off six clubs, is feeding off 12 and pushing up the ranks."
Neil McManus, who retired from Antrim duty in June after 17 years in saffron would also like to see funding ringfenced for hurling but he feels making the Liam MacCarthy Cup more competitive would increase interest generally.
"Hurling at the very top level is an incredibly attractive sport to watch, it’s in a very good place," he said. "Entertainment-wise it’s phenomenal.
"But we have to look to grow the [number of] counties who give us that entertainment. We have the top nine teams who have really [long] been the top nine teams.
"Antrim are a Liam MacCarthy team and although they haven’t broken much delph there, they are becoming very steady as a Division 1 and Leinster Championship team. We have Antrim, Carlow, Westmeath, Offaly, Laois and Kerry, and possibly Kildare, who are starting to put the structures in place that may allow them to grow that top-nine group.
"The tiered structures actually work really well but we have to bring up this group in my opinion. We're seeing the same teams in provincial finals and the All-Ireland finals every year. So we have to acknowledge that and say what we’re doing and how we’re distributing the funds isn’t working.
"I think we are wasting funding from HQ in some areas because it’s not implemented well enough. It’s being distributed through provincial councils who really don’t prioritise hurling. We need hurling people in charge of hurling. A team of people who will hold the county boards accountable for the funding they get.
"If I was in charge of the Ulster council, my sway would be almost entirely towards hurling, which would be wrong for the football. So lets split it. And distribute the funds available to hurling more heavily towards those six or seven teams who can join the top level. Growing that Liam MacCarthy group would give us the biggest bang for our buck and other teams will say 'We’re not too far away from that and we can grow’.
"It is possible. Why has it worked in Antrim over the last number of years? The Saffron Business Forum has tapped into the economic hub that is Belfast, and all sections of the community in Belfast, and used those finances to allow Antrim to compete financially with those top nine teams. And we’re seeing some sporadic results as a consequence."
Fogarty would prefer to focus on growing the club scene but insists that a new national hurling development manager is a priority, a position that has not been filled since his five-year stint ended in 2021.
"Nobody has replaced me," he observed. "You could say that Covid played a part, in that the GAA had to cut back on roles, but it’s a disaster really.
"Having gone through five years and covered every county in Ireland, I think there’s no problem at all with the inter-county game. We have the structures there and all of those counties get their five or six league games and five or six championship games. They’re reasonably well catered for.
"But the problem is it’s just so unbelievably barren for the clubs in those counties. If somebody in Offaly, Laois or Carlow wants a match, they don't have too far to travel. If somebody in Ballyshannon wants a match they have a long way to travel.
"Until those clubs can multiply, nobody is going to move forward.
"My role hasn’t been filled and for the weaker counties you need a dog barking the whole time, which I probably was. But you need more than one dog."
