Irish Gangs and Stick-Fighting (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"I received your book and am highly impressed with it...Please keep up the good work..." - John O. McBride -- Personal correspondence with the author.

"I was impressed...the book is a remarkable accomplishment..." - Thomas A. Green, Associate Professor, Texas A&M -- Journal Of Manly Arts, May, 2002 (http://ejmas.com/jmanly/jmanlyframe.htm)

"OUTSTANDING JOHN!! Well done..." - Glen Doyle, Kung Fu champion and instructor in "Uisce Beatha Bata Rince", Irish stick-fighting style. -- Personal correspondence with the author.

"Your excellent book sheds much needed light on the true martial arts practices of the Irish." - Al Saint Jacques -- Personal correspondence with the author.

"Your introduction on Carleton and the "endnotes" do much to clarify Irish stick-fighting in its historic context..." - Adrian Smyth -- Personal correspondence with the author.

Product Description

Irish Gangs and Stick-Fighting In The Works of William Carleton, is a collection of stories about Irish stick-fighters, written in the 19th century, by the Irish author William Carleton. Carleton was an Irish stick-fighter himself, and this is the first time that all of his tales about stick-fighting have been collected in a single volume. The stories provide many details about Irish methods of fighting in the 19th century, and great insights into the fighting culture and code - what I call the "Shillelagh Law" - which guided the lives of Irish fighting men, throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Four hundred endnotes, meticulously researched, explain the 19th century Irish, and Hiberno-English terms, used by Carleton throughout the text.

Carleton himself, was an Irish-speaking stick-fighter, who trained and fought as a stick-fighter for much of his early life. That his neighbors, friends and family members continued to do so long after his move to Dublin is evident in The Party Fight and Funeral. Carleton never wrote from a distance, but always from autobiographical material, especially in his earliest short stories like the ones in this volume, and this is further confirmation of the historical accuracy and authenticity of the Irish stick-fighting traditions documented in his works.

"The Battle Of The Factions" tells the story of two feuding Irish clans, the O´Callaghans and the O´Hallaghans, as told by a member of the O’Callaghan family; it has a Romeo and Juliet sub-plot. Neal Malone, the tailor of the O´Callaghan faction in The Battle Of The Factions, is the main character in the comedic, "Neal Malone", the story of a diminutive and heroic fighting tailor. Neal - who wants nothing more than to fight and prove his mettle - is forced to solve the conundrum of getting himself involved in a fight when he is so well liked, even by his enemies, that he cannot find anyone who will fight him. In "The Party Fight And Funeral", a man returns to the village of his youth, only to find that one of his childhood friends has been killed in one of the huge Party Fights which were common in early 19th century Ireland. This sets the stage for numerous anecdotes - some amusing, most incredibly tragic. "The Dead Boxer" is actually a novella set in the 18th century, which involves an Irish stick-fighter and pugilist with a powerful punch, his girlfriend, (who is a member of an enemy Faction - another Romeo and Juliet sub-plot), and a pugilist with a deadly knock-out punch, who seems to make a living extorting money out of the burghers of various towns in Ireland.

All of the tales contained some footnotes explaining Irish words and Hiberno-Irish expressions. The author has expanded on these wherever possible, creating in his endnotes, a glossary of Irish terms from the 19th century.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 316 pages
• Publisher: Xlibris Corporation (March 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401019811
• ISBN-13: 978-1401019815
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #647,352 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent introduction to Irish martial arts, August 5, 2002

By A Customer

Before you see Martin Scorcese's film 'Gangs Of New York', read John W. Hurley's book 'Irish Gangs And Stick-Fighting'. Scorcese's film is based on the first half of the book'The Gangs Of New York' which deals exclusively with Irish gangs. And while it's flashy and exotic, there isn't much substance in the original book; it doesn't explain the traditions of the Irish gangs or the famous Irish shillelagh, it simply describes them in a sensational way. Hurley's book remedies this problem. It provides first hand accounts of Irish gangs and fights, written by a 'reformed' Irish stick-fighter, and vividly describes Ireland's fighting culture which was goverened by a code of honour which Hurley rightly calls 'Shillelagh Law'. If you are Irish or have an interest in Irish gangs, Irish boxing, the shillelagh, or Scorcese's film, you will really enjoy this book - I highly recommend it.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The More Things Change..., January 29, 2006

By	Brendan D. King "Brendan D. King" (Saint Cloud, Minnesota) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In the early 19th century, an impoverished Gaelic speaking author named Liam O'Cathalain Anglicised his name to William Carleton, and began publishing short stories in English. A former gang member from the farming villages of what is now Northern Ireland, he wrote about the world he knew, and as a result many of his stories are imbued with the same anti-gang message as your stereotypical movie set in the inner city. His stories tell very much about why young Irish men joined gangs or "factions" as they were called. If a young Irish peasant was a faction member, the landlord and his agents would think twice about evicting him, his family, or his friends. If they insisted, the landlord and his agents would likely end up dead. However, the factions spent more time fighting amoung themselves than taking on the system. In the story "Neal Malone," a doughty, but short, tailor has his desire to make his bones on the gang scene shattered after he marries the nastiest shrew in the parish. In "The Battle of the Factions," the love between an Irish Romeo and Juliet is nowhere near enough to end the pathological hatred that exists between two gangs. Editor John W. Hurley has provided copious notes, which I was very grateful for, as otherwise I would have had a very difficult time the dialogue of the stories, a dialect birthed by the shotgun-marriage between the English and Gaelic tongues. In closing, I have to say that I am very grateful both to Mr. Carleton for writing these tales and to Mr. Hurley for finally reissuing them. For this they both deserve a round of applause.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book of Irish tales, stories of great shillelagh fights, September 5, 2005

By	C. Griffith (New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In my own humble and (admittedly) Irish opinion, this is a great collection of stories by a 19th century Irishman who grew up in the older Irish ways yet was educated in the English ways. Thus, you have a group of stories that the man could have written in Irish but in order to sell the stories at all had to write in English. Carleton is writing during an interesting period, when many of the Irish people still spoke Irish! Yet English was gaining as the dominant language, and when a language passes much culture is lost along with it. Carleton bridges an important gap, and his stories are both important and interesting for that reason.
Hurley published these stories as examples of a dying warrior culture on the brink of passing, for the purpose of revealing real Irish stick-fighting, and it is clearly shown. It does not elaborate on techniques of fighting, but there are passsages that deal with how shillelaghs were treated and hardened for use. Carleton's intention was to write good uniquely Irish tales about great clan fights, and to show the Irish spirit. This book shows all of this.