A sliotar or sliothar is a hard solid sphere slightly larger than a tennis ball, consisting of a cork core covered by two pieces of leather

Leather

Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...

 stitched together. Sometimes called a "puck" or "hurling ball", it resembles an American baseball

Baseball (object)

A baseball is a ball used primarily in the sport of the same name, baseball. The ball features a rubber or cork center, wrapped in yarn and covered in leather. It is in circumference . The yarn or string used to wrap the baseball can be up to one mile in length...

 with more pronounced stitching. It is used in the Gaelic games

Gaelic games

Gaelic games are sports played in Ireland under the auspices of the Gaelic Athletic Association. The two main games are Gaelic football and hurling...

 of hurling

Hurling

Hurling is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic origin, administered by the Gaelic Athletic Association, and played with sticks called hurleys and a ball called a sliotar. Hurling is the national game of Ireland. The game has prehistoric origins, has been played for at least 3,000 years, and...

, camogie

Camogie

Camogie is an Irish stick-and-ball team sport played by women; it is almost identical to the game of hurling played by men. Camogie is played by 100,000 women in Ireland and world wide, largely among Irish communities....

, rounders

Rounders

Rounders is a game played between two teams of either gender. The game originated in England where it was played in Tudor times. Rounders is a striking and fielding team game that involves hitting a small, hard, leather-cased ball with a round wooden, plastic or metal bat. The players score by...

 and shinty

Shinty

Shinty is a team game played with sticks and a ball. Shinty is now played mainly in the Scottish Highlands, and amongst Highland migrants to the big cities of Scotland, but it was formerly more widespread, being once competitively played on a widespread basis in England and other areas in the...

.

Dimensions

An official GAA

Gaelic Athletic Association

The Gaelic Athletic Association is an amateur Irish and international cultural and sporting organisation focused primarily on promoting Gaelic games, which include the traditional Irish sports of hurling, camogie, Gaelic football, handball and rounders...

 sliotar, as used in top level hurling competitions such as the National Hurling League

National Hurling League

The National Hurling League is an annual hurling competition between the county teams of Ireland. Contested by 35 teams , it operates on a system of promotion and relegation between four different divisions, with Division One...

 or the All Ireland Senior Hurling Championships

All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

The GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship is an annual hurling competition organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association since 1887 for the top hurling teams in Ireland....

 is subject to strict regulations as regards its size, mass and composition.

The following regulations apply:

• The diameter is between 69mm and 72mm (not including the rib)
• The mass is between 110g and 120g
• The rib height is between 2mm and 2.8mm, and width between 3.6mm and 5.4mm
• The leather cover can be between 1.8mm and 2.7mm and is laminated with a coating of no more than 0.15mm

Approved sliotars carry a GAA mark of approval. The GAA maintains a list of approved suppliers, based on manufacturers who pass their inspection.

History

Early (pre-GAA) sliotars used various materials, depending on the part of the country, including combinations of wood, leather, rope and animal hair and even hollow bronze.

In the early years of the GAA, there was no specific standard for the size or weight of sliotars. The man credited with initial standardisation of the sliotar is Ned Treston (1862–1949) of Gort

Gort

Gort is a town in south County Galway in the west of Ireland. An Gort is the official Irish name for the town, as defined by the Placenames Commission. In spoken Irish, however, the town is known by its traditional name Gort Inse Guaire. It lies just north of the border with County Clare on the...

, Co. Galway

County Galway

County Galway is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the city of Galway. Galway County Council is the local authority for the county. There are several strongly Irish-speaking areas in the west of the county...

. He was selected to play in a match between South Galway and North Tipperary in February 1886 in Dublin. Prior the game, there was debate between the teams as regards the size of the sliotar. Treston made a sliotar at a nearby saddler, which was used in the game, and went on to be a prototype for the standard sliotar used from then on.

Johnny McAuliffe (born 1896, Bruff

Bruff

Bruff is a town in east County Limerick, in the midwest of Ireland, located on the old Limerick–Cork road . The town lies on the Morning Star river, with two bridges in the town itself...

, Co. Limerick

County Limerick

It is thought that humans had established themselves in the Lough Gur area of the county as early as 3000 BC, while megalithic remains found at Duntryleague date back further to 3500 BC...

) is credited with the modern design. Before his improvements the ball tended to be inconsistent due to poor manufacturing. It was also heavier than modern sliotars (over 200g), and due to being made partly with horse-hair, tended to lose shape during play, and become soggy in wet conditions. The brown colour also meant that players tended to lose sight of the sliotar against crowded backdrops such as the crowd in Croke Park

Croke Park

Croke Park in Dublin is the principal stadium and headquarters of the Gaelic Athletic Association , Ireland's biggest sporting organisation...

.

McAuliffe's changes were to introduce a cork core, with a 2 piece white-tanned leather covering as the standard materials. These changes led to a harder wearing ball, which had better visibility (the white-tanned pigskin was impervious to grass stains and water resistant). The construction materials also meant that the ball was only about half as heavy Treston's version.

In the early 2000s, the GAA experimented with using sliotars with rubber rather than cork cores, however, it was found that using a rubber core led to a more unpredictable bounce, and moved a lot faster that a ball with a cork core, especially in wet conditions. It was decided to return to a cork based ball in light of this.