Handball

A sport in which players use their hands to hit a small rubber ball against a wall so that it bounces off in such a way that their opponent cannot return it. There are three versions of handball (four-wall, three-wall and one-wall) that can each be played by either two players(singles), three players(cut-throat) or four players(doubles). The first recorded game of striking a ball with a hand against a wall was in Scotland in 1427, when it was recorded that King James I ordered a cellar window in his palace courtyard blocked up, as it was interfering with his game. In Ireland, the earliest written record of a similar ball game is contained in the town statutes of Galway of 1527, which forbade the playing of ball games against the walls of the town. The first depiction of an Irish form of handball does not appear till 1785. The sport of handball in Ireland was eventually standardized as Gaelic handball.