In fact, much of what is taken for Irishness is a myth, manufactured abroad in a curious attempt to construct a land that has never existed - or at least to maintain one that no longer exists. (To be frank, they do not have to dye the Liffey green.) An Irish plumber will say, ''Sure I'll be there tomorrow'' (when he means next month), but there is no comma after the ''sure,'' as is commonly reported. Patrick's Day, but they do not dye the Liffey, their faces, or their beverages green. Irish people do say, ''Look what I'm after doing,'' but they do not say, ''Would you be after doing (whatever it is)?'' They do wear shamrocks on St. If these expressions are heard in Ireland, they are invariably underpinned by English or American accents. No Irish person has ever said ''Top o' the mornin','' either. ![]() No Irish person has ever said ''Begorrah,'' outside of plays (at least I have never heard them do so). Irish people spend 13 years of their educational life learning a smattering of their native tongue, and most of them know that ''brogue,'' or something like it, means ''shoe.'' If told that it meant anything else they would look at you in blank amazement. Take the word ''brogue,'' for instance, commonly held to mean ''Irish accent'' in Anglo-American belief. But I am much more dubious about other supposed facets of Irishry. Now, I am willing to believe, although I have no proof, that shillelaghs once played a part in Irish life - beyond shop windows, that is. Or so they tell me, anyway - I have never come across one doing so. They are, for anyone who does not know, murderous-looking blackthorn sticks with which the Irish were reputed to hit one another over the head. ![]() And indeed it was some time later when I first saw the object - in the window of a Dublin shop catering to tourists. I came across the word, if I remember correctly, in Reader's Digestm, and had to look it up to discover what it meant. Thank you to Ben Miller for his help with pronunciation and review.Although I had lived in Ireland all my life, it was not till I reached the age of fifteen that I first heard of a shillelagh. Pronunciation: Just like English « bar. » This is the small point of the stick used to stab and thrust with. The « T » is pronounced very sharply.īarr: The point or ferrule. The first syllable rhymes with English « butt ». Pronunciation: Just as it would be in English.īuta: This is the butt, the lower part of the stick used to defend the arm and to strike with. The first syllable rhymes with English « now » or « cow ».ĭorn: This is the grip, the area which is gripped by the hand to wield the shillelagh. This would be the part of the stick above the grip, which is used mostly to block with. Ramhar: This is referred to as the « thick part » ( an ceann ramhar den bhata). Pronunciation: Murr-lonn – rhymes with English words purr-gone. Interestingly, Ó Dónaill mentions that this word not only designates the knob of a stick, but also the button of a foil (murlán ar phionsa) or the knuckles of the hand (ag imirt murlán). It is not meant as an official bataireacht typology, and others might use different terms depending on the region and style, though everyone is welcome to use it. It is taken from Niall Ó Dónaill’s Irish dictionary Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla published in 1977 which mentions many shillelagh specific terms. Note that this terminology is not part of the tradition that I learned from Antrim Bata. ![]() In this article, I propose a short list of different terms to be used when discussing the Irish stick. Most martial arts will have a typology to discuss the different parts of their weapons, but the shillelagh has none. One thing that strikes me when discussing bataireacht with students, is how much we lack a vocabulary to talk about the stick.
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