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This is the Eirball.club Landing Page for the All-Time Archive of Irish Snooker, Pool, Billiards and Bagatelle plus Curling, Darts, Archery and Target Shooting . It is an ongoing project and part of the Eirball.ie – Irish, North American and World Sports Archives

Featured Image Credit: Bangkok, Thailand – SEP 1:Ken Doherty of Ireland participates in a Sangsom Six-red World Championship 2014 at Montien Riverside Hotel on September 1, 2014 in Bangkok, Thailand. Picture Credit: Item ID: 214717180 Photograph Contributor Pal2iyawit [Internet] Available from: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bangkok-thailand-sep-1ken-doherty-ireland-214717180 [Accessed 4 January 2022]

Snooker

Snooker is played on a table covered with a green baize and with six holes (pockets) at the four corners and halfway down both sides. The object of the game is to use a white ball (hit with a cue) to knock coloured balls into pockets. The balls are worth different points for each colour from 1 (red) to 7 (Black).

Snooker Ace Ken Doherty

Pool

Variations on the game of Snooker include Pool (smaller table and two sets of balls – stripes and spots); Billiards and Bagatelle.

a woman holding a rack with billiard balls

Croquet

The origins of Croquet are unclear, it may have been played in the Middle Ages, and possibly even have passed down from ancient times. The first mention of Croquet, however, is in the Field in 1858, which mentions meetings of the Co. Meath Croquet Cracks. the players were mostly young and met at each others houses, and one player, George Annesley Pollock of Oatlands and Newcastle, Co. Meath, laid out the rules under the pseudonym “corncrake” and called them “The Rules of the Oatlands Club” – the first Croquet Rules in the World. [Ref: 1]

It is game played on a lawn with two players or four, and two balls, which each player hits with a mallet, attempting to get it through hoops inserted into the lawn.

References

[1] Croquet Ireland (2019) A History of Croquet in Ireland [Internet] Available from: http://croquetireland.com/node/4 [Accessed 29 May 2020]

Cheltenham Croquet Club