It’s arguably the most unique and specialised tradition in all of Ireland. It’s played on one day of the year - and only one day of the year - with practice strictly forbidden. Only men can take part, and it only happens on one small island off the west coast.

It is the ancient game of cead, held every St. Patrick’s Day on Inis Meáin, the middle of the three Aran Islands. This Irish-speaking stronghold, where the famous playwright John Millington Synge spent his summers at the turn of the 20th century, has the smallest population of the three Aran Islands, and attracts less tourists than Inis Mór and Inis Oírr. The island’s abundance of rocks have been used to build stone walls across the terrain: locals say this was a means of using up all the island’s rocks.

The rules of cead are simple. Men carve long wooden bats and “ceads”, which are small wooden tubes. They are divided into teams, with captains chosen from last year’s winning team. The captains then choose their players, although as practicing cead on this small island is against the rules - and imagine trying to hide your cheating from the neighbours on a small island of just 160 people which is full of open fields - they choose the players based on a guess as to how skilled they will be. Then, the players hit the ceads to various distances to score points.

After the game, everybody goes to the island’s only pub, where the “World Cup” is presented, and celebrations and commiserations take place. The names of previous winners are engraved onto the cup.