Hardy Fingallians, Kildare trippers and ‘The Divil Ye'll Rise’ scufflers: wrestling in modern Ireland

Abstract

This article advances a synoptic monograph of the principal representations that particularise Ireland's wrestling arena from modern times to the twentieth century. Providing a delineated critique of themes that include participation, patronage and promotion, particular focus is centred on providing an enhanced understanding of the predominant Irish wrestling style, namely Collar-and-Elbow, considering the Carriaght (Backhold) style also. Evaluating Irish wrestling's scant historiography, the codified practices and structures of Collar-and-Elbow, relevant similarities to folk wrestling styles within the Atlantic Archipelago are also catalogued. When detailing wrestling's role as public entertainment, attendant expressive episodes of social disorder are explored. Customary contentions that the principal cause for the sport's ultimate decline was British coercive legislation are challenged. The validity of recent assertions concerning the sport, to include a claim that Irish wrestling was irregularly conducted after the 1830s, are calibrated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1.Irish Magazine, July 1811, 301. Major Henry Charles Sirr in 1796 was appointed Dublin's Town Major which was effectively the Police Commissioner. He was one of Dublin Castle's leading agents in the campaign against the United Irishmen. He apprehended Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Robert Emmet. When the post disappeared in 1808, he was permitted to keep the title and remained in office as an assistant magistrate until he retired in 1826. See Madden, The United Irishmen, Their Lives and Times (1857, 394–395) regarding ‘Secret Service’ moneys, were it is noted there was ‘little doubt’ that the ‘well-known Wrestling Doctor, of the Milesian Magazine, was pensioned for lampooning the Catholic leaders from 1816 to 1825 and received a pension of £200; page 369 detailing a payment in March 1798 of £22 15 shillings; page 370 regarding a payment in May 1798 of £11 – with both payments from Major Sirr.

^2. (See Bartlett, Revolutionary Dublin: The Letters of Francis Higgins to Dublin Castle, 1795–1801,2004, 47) regarding the Society of United Irishmen that was established in Belfast and Dublin in 1791 – with the later grouping comprising of Dublin's middle class society and divided between Protestant and Catholic. The society's ideology combined the new radicalism inspired by the American and French Revolutions along with older British traditions regarding Commonwealth doctrines, and Irish patriotism. Its main aims were parliamentary reform and the removal of English control from Irish affairs. In 1798, Lord Edward Fitzgerald and others advocated immediate insurrection, but were opposed by moderators such as Robert Emmet who later engaged in insurrection 1803.

^3. The assassination of the newly appointed Irish Chief Secretary, Lord Frederick Cavendish and the Under-secretary, TH Burke, was carried out by the Invincibles. These murders forced the British Prime Minister Gladstone to maintain coercion in Ireland.