Folklore: Faction Fights
Date: 1936
Collector: Seán de Buitléir
Informant: Máirtín Leighlin
There used to be great fights and feuds between parishes and baronies long ago, and Adamstown used to be a great place for that. About sixty seven or seventy years ago this used to take place. They used to fight on the fairs and at the races, especially when people would have a sup of drink taken, for it was… that time and nearly anyone would be able to buy what would make them drunk for a shilling. In fact they would never fight at all only when they had drink taken. Almost at every fair when the buying and selling would be over and the men would all go off to the public houses, the fighting would start.
They would use big blackthorn sticks for the purpose and often people came home with their bones broken and had to stay in bed for a week or so, or maybe would have to go to hospital for treatment. The fighting took place almost at every fair and if there was no fighting there would be a great wonder. There was a fair one day about twenty years ago and it was about two o'clock and all the tramps were collected waiting for the fun and they were wondering that there was no fighting. "Begob". says one of them, “it is two o'clock and not a stroke struck yet!”
There was a race in Adamstown about sixty seven years ago, and the fighting started between two parishes. They fought with sticks for a long time. They fought away until evening and it is almost the heaviest fight that ever was witnessed. There were a lot of people hurt that evening, and as the old people say it was all over nothing.
Credit to the Dúchas project at the National Folklore Collection, University College Dublin.
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