Wexford GAA pauses club hurling championship for Electric Picnic weekend in Laois

Wexford GAA has decided to press pause on its club championship at the end of August to coincide with the staging of Electric Picnic in Stradbally, Co. Laois.

The fifth round of the hurling championship had originally been pencilled in for the weekend of August 29 to 31, but it will now take place a week later. The shift follows the early exits of Wexford’s senior hurling and football teams from the inter-county championships, freeing up a slot in the fixture calendar.

Speaking to the Irish Independent, Wexford GAA chairman John Kenny said the decision came after a surge of fixture change requests last year for the same weekend, the majority of which were linked to the three-day music festival in Laois.

“The CCC (Competitions Control Committee) based it on what went on on that weekend last year,” Kenny explained. “We had requests coming in from all over the place and everybody wanting to play their matches on a certain day at a certain time.

“So we just had the weekend free in the calendar. Unfortunately, we were out of our inter-county championships earlier than we had hoped this year and we just had the weekend to play with and we said we’d put it in then.

“Some clubs are happy with it and I’ll be honest with you, some clubs are not… it wasn’t just necessarily to go to Electric Picnic. There are a few clubs that weren’t altogether happy. But every weekend, clubs want to change fixtures, and it’s just not possible. After that gap weekend, we’re effectively into a knock-out championship.”

The decision has raised eyebrows among some Wexford clubs, as the county had only granted a free weekend for the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann last weekend.

Electric Picnic will run in Stradbally from Friday, August 29 to Sunday, August 31, attracting tens of thousands of festival-goers to Laois for Ireland’s largest music and arts event.

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