Irish Gangs And Stick-Fighting: In The Works Of William Carleton (Bataireacht Shillelagh Irish Stick-Fighting Series)

I enjoy history and being Irish-American and a martial artist, I thought this would be a good introduction to the Shillelagh.

Very enjoyable book. great stories, just really fun to read. I noticed though that the folks in the stories almost always carry oak instead of blackthorn,interesting.

As the works of Carleton can be read for free at Google books for one the only reason to spend money on this book is for the introduction and notes. The editor has expanded on the introduction in his work on the shillelagh so you would be better off spending your coin on that instead. The notes are interesting but anyone who can make it through Dickens won't have any trouble with Carleton.The Faction Fight story is full of the negative Irish stereotypes the editor campaigns against. Neal Malone is a mysoginistic folk talethat was probably socially acceptable when it was written. The best of the bunch by far is the Party Fight and Funeral, which is a biographical essay.I would recommend "Shillelagh" before this book, but based on its own merits I got four stars worth of entertainment and education from this tome.

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.

Obwohl dieses Buch wirklich nur etwas für Kenner der Materie ist, ist die Lektüre sowohl spannend als auch informativ. Man fühlt sich geradezu in die Hochzeit der irischen Gangs hinein versetzt. Es dürfte auch für den durchschnittlichen Budoka als Quelle interessant sein, wie es in realen Kämpfen wirklich zugeht.Ich kann dieses Werk nur empfehlen.

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.

Not much information here. A few history lessons and very little info on stick fighting. Maybe you could do better looking this subject up in the encyclopedia .

Was expecting more of a how to than a history. But it was delightful. It's hard to follow bits, unless you actually read it in a thick, Irish brogue in your head....(trust me on this!!!)