Meet Cathal Sweeney, the 16-year-old Irish student who turned the frustration of losing hurling balls in winter darkness into a glow-in-the-dark ball that generated €40,000 in four months

For Cathal Sweeney, a frustrating problem on the hurling pitch became the starting point for an innovative student business. A self-described hurling enthusiast, Sweeney found that training on dark winter evenings could be difficult when there was not enough light to see the sliotar clearly. Rather than accepting the problem, he developed a glow-in-the-dark ball designed to help players continue practising when daylight fades. The idea eventually became GLO Hurling and its flagship product, the Glo Ball. In 2026, GLO Hurling won the Senior Category at the Student Enterprise Programme National Finals. Sweeney, a student at Mungret Community College in Limerick, developed the product as part of his Student Enterprise project. According to the official Student Enterprise Programme, the idea arose from his frustration when trying to train during dark winter evenings.

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