Irish Stick Fighting (Online Lesson 1) Glen Doyle Shillelagh

The Irish have used various sticks and cudgels as weapons of self-defense for centuries.

Since ancient times, the arts of stick fighting had been handed down from fathers to sons or learned in traditional military fencing schools.

The traditional Irish shillelagh is still identified with popular Irish culture to this day, although the arts of bataireacht are much less so. The sticks used for bataireacht are not of a standardised size, as there are various styles of bataireacht, using various kinds of sticks.

By the 18th century bataireacht became increasingly associated with Irish gangs called "factions". Irish faction fights involved large groups of Irish men (and sometimes women) who would engage in melees at county fairs, weddings, funerals, or any other convenient gathering. One social historian, Conley, believe that this reflected a culture of recreational violence. However, most historians (best summarized by James S. Donnelly (1983) in "Irish Peasants: Violence & Political Unrest, 1780"), agree that faction fighting had class and political overtones, as depicted for example in the works of William Carleton.

By the early 19th century these gangs had organized into larger regional federations, which coalesced from the old Whiteboys, into the Caravat and Shanavest factions. Beginning first in Munster the Caravat and Shanavest "war" erupted sporadically throughout the 19th century and caused some serious disturbances. Over time, traditional rules and methods of bataireacht and Shillelagh Law degenerated into more murderous fighting involving farm implements and guns.

As the push for Irish independence from Great Britain gained steam toward the end of the 19th century, leaders of the Irish community believed it was necessary to distance themselves from customs associated with factionism and division, to present a united military front to the British, hence the "United Irishmen" of the Republican movement. Foremost of these customs were the arts of bataireacht, and the shillelagh was soon replaced with the gun of the new unified faction of the Fenian Movement.