The Linda Letters by Gabriel O'Sullivan: Fighting stick tradition

30 January 2011

358

R. Linda:

I be so done with people asking me about celebrating St. Patrick's Day back in Ireland. I find meself ad nauseam explaining I am from NORTHERN Ireland and there we don't celebrate as they do in the South and even there it is quite a different celebration than here in the States. But I flap me jaws for nothing because they never listen and every year the same question about celebrating it back home comes up to bite me in the arse.

So once and for all, let me say in the States the celebrations are wild and different. Everyone is proud to be Irish even when they aren't, and there be a whole lot of Irish impressions goin' on, and drinking and green beer. In the Republic of Ireland, the big parade be found in Dublin and the revelry there be a bit more than anywhere else it be. But mostly it is a day for reflection in church and a whole lot of prayin' goin' on. In the North, ye don't let anyone know yer a Catholic. No, shamrocks in the lapel, nothing to let the other side know you're a Catholic and St. Patrick be your saint. Ya don't tell a soul this for fear of being beaten up or worse thrown in the river Liffey.

Which brings me to the subject of cudgels. I was asked why Irishmen carry sticks. These sticks are made out of the very hard, heavy and difficult-to-break blackthorn wood that grows on the Emerald Isle. These are known as shillelaghs in the South but where I come from we call them fighting sticks. And yer probably wondering what's so fired important about a stick anyway. Well, I'll tell ya what's so important about them. Gun carrying isn't exactly allowed so what's an Irishman to do, but carry a stick because no law says ye can't carry a stick around. What exactly is a shillelagh you want to know? Well, there are a few kinds and depending how much you want to openly celebrate St. Patrick's Day will depend on which kind you have for yourself.

Personally, I like the extra knotty kind with the larger knob at the top. This makes a quick whack on the head stun your assailant for a few minutes and gives you time to make the Irish exit. By the time they can stand up unassisted, you be long gone. Now, some of the more adventurous Irish like the kind with the hollowed-out hitting end that has been filled with molten lead so the whack on the forehead will brain damage the assailant and when he awakens from his coma he won't remember who hit him and with what. A very popular item in the North.

Let me give ye a wee bit o' history on this multi-purpose stick. I've seen it offered in magazines as a tourist remembrance from a trip to the old sod, I have. I've also seen it offered as a cane (a good way to masquerade its true intent). Yes, indeed these things be easy to get for whatever reason you might want them.

You pronounce it 'she lay lee' which in Irish is Síol Éalaigh which means descendants of Éalach. Now, me Da has one of these and it looks more like a mallet than the traditional "fighting stick" or bata (the Irish name for it). I will put a picture of his at the end. Now when ye see me Da's there be no doubt in your mind what that be for. I have one as well, with an Irish penny sunk in its handle (for good luck) and I'll put a photo of mine as well at the end, so you can see for yourself that mine looks like a walking stick it does, great for beaming an enemy on the head or using the other end to poke his eye out. Me Mam uses it to stir stew. Yup, she does.

The shillelagh came into existence a very long time ago. Some cultures had the axe, some the spear, some the sword, but the Irish had the shillelagh! You may laugh, but we were damn good fighters as a result. We had to be, wood against steel be a no-brainer!

We fighting Irish perfected the shillelagh into a deceptively lethal weapon. We'd cut the wood (usually blackthorn, but sometimes oak), cut off the branches to knobs, slather it in grease and stick it up the chimney to cure. The bark be left on to keep it harder than if the bark was stripped off. The stripped stick could easily split that way, but with the bark still hugging the core it was quite the sturdy weapon of choice. To further keep the stick from splitting it was then buried in manure. Yes, it was, so if the threat of shaking a wooden stick at the enemy wasn't enough to deter them, the stink might.

In the north of Ireland in particular, back in the days of old, instead of holding a feast that a son has reached the age of manhood, or taking him to the pub, the Irish father would gift his son with a shillelagh. He'd take the boyo outside and teach him the fine arts of weaponry with "the stick," and I will say many a young head was cracked until they got the hang of it. Ye don't swing it like one might holding it from one end, instead, ye hold it about the middle and snap it from the wrist aiming for the head. If your buddy drops his after being 'brained' by an opponent, it be fair to pick up his shillelagh and use it as a deterrent to fend off feints while you swing the other shillelagh with your dominant arm.

To this day in the South of Ireland, it is not unheard of to hear that a rival family sitting at a ceilidh or some other social gathering, didn't keep the old tradition alive by bonking heads with homemade shillelaghs all round. And as long as we are on the subject, how about a paddy whacker? It behoves me to suspect that from the longer shillelagh came the shorter paddy whacker. These are wooden truncheons that are beloved of the Irish police. I be happy to say the rumour is that they are being phased out. But the sad news is they be replaced by retractable batons. Oi! The old paddy whacker was quite the ornate item it was. It had fancy notches and sometimes Celtic carvings and even names (of the heads whacked) cut into them. These were passed down from one generation of gardai to the next. Often in Irish families, if you had a policeman Da, he passed his whacker down to his policeman son, just like the priest father would do with the holy Bible to his son.

I know, I know I should be whacked with a shillelagh for that last, but in many cases it be true!

Gabe