Cast Shillelagh

Over almost two years, I played as a Kenku Grave Cleric in the Dungeons and Dragons campaign Curse of Strahd. My character started out carrying around a quarterstaff, which I upgraded to a Gulthias Staff. Then it upgraded again to a super tricked-out quarterstaff called the Staff of Wracking Heals, homebrewed by the DM and one of the other PCs. But, either way, the walking sticks all got the same bonuses when I used my second favorite cantrip, Shillelagh. It's no secret that Dungeons and Dragons is inspired by worldwide legends and mythology and for such a long time I have been wondering from where the word 'shillelagh' originates. But I had only heard it in a list of generic Irish stereotypes along with shamrocks, clovers, leprechauns, and Guinness. In this article, I will first examine my introduction to the word through the rules of D&D. Second, I will look at what the shillelagh is in our world and the role it continues to play in the legends, history, and culture of Ireland. This will end in examining why the designers may have decided to name the spell as they did, i.e. where did the idea of a magical spiritually-imbued druidic weapon come from?

*Even though this won't be out by St. Patrick's Day (who wasn't Irish... but I won't go into that whole thing) I hope that someone can learn something about interpreting contemporary sources to their sources.

The Magic of Nature

Symbol: School of Transmutation (Basic Rules pg. 275)

This cantrip (level 0 spell) is part of the school of Transmutation and written to be usable by Druids [and a cleric]. Upon casting on the wood of a club or quarterstaff you are holding is imbued with nature's power. For the duration (1 minute), you get to use your spellcasting ability instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of melee attacks using that weapon [which is super helpful as a character with a very low strength score], and the weapon's damage die becomes a d8 of magical bludgeoning damage (if it isn't already). The spell ends if you cast it again or if you let go of the weapon. The components (things you need to cast the spell) are vocals, sematic (moving fingers around), and materials, which are mistletoe, a shamrock leaf, and a club or quarterstaff to cast it on. (Basic Rules n.d.: 275).

Gulthias staff from Dungeons and Dragons Campaign book *Curse of Strahd pg. 221.*

The Gulthias staff is a spongy, black length of wood of branches of the Gulthias tree, which can be wielded as a magical quarterstaff. On a hit, it deals damage as a normal quarterstaff, and you can expend 1 charge to use Vampiric Strike to regain the number of hit points equal to the damage dealt by the weapon. Each time someone uses the special ability, red blood oozes from the staff, and they must succeed on a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw or be afflicted with short-term madness, which connects to the evil of the origin of the staff and its' "children", the blights.

Blights "Legends tell of a vampire named Gulthias who worked terrible magic and raised up an abominable tower called Nightfang Spire. Gulthias was undone when a hero plunged a wooden stake through his heart, but as the vampire was destroyed, his blood infused the stake with a dreadful power. In time, tendrils of new growth sprouted from the wood, growing into a sapling infused with the vampire’s evil essence. It is said that a mad druid discovered the sapling, transplanting it to an underground grotto where it could grow. From this Gulthias tree came the seeds from which the first blights were sown. ...Wherever a tree or plant is contaminated by a fragment of an evil mind or power, a Gulthias tree can rise to infest and corrupt the surrounding forest. Its evil spreads through root and soil to other plants, which perish or transform into blights."
(D&D Monster Manual).

Of course, the Gulthias staff and the vampire from which the evil originated have no connection to the Shillelagh spell, the description of the black wood material is interestingly familiar to one of the traditional woods used to make a shillelagh. Although the real thing is one piece and doesn't bleed on its own. It's also interesting that the Blights are a sort of curse on the land not unlike the great string of blights on Ireland's crops (including the potato famine), when they would whither, turn black, and die.

Etymology - What is it?

The word Shillelagh is thought to have come from the Irish phrase sail éille or 'saill éalaigh', which translates into English as “thonged willow-stick” (Barry, 2013). 'Sail' means willow or cudgel (a stout club) and 'éille' is an adjective/verb-ish form of the word 'iall' which means thong or string, strap, leash, etc. (Hurley 2007:12, Dolan 2006: 209). The thong part of the name comes from the leather wrist strap joined to the handle and the Shillelagh was commonly used as a walking cane or walking stick, with a large knot on the top to also be used as a weapon club or cudgel, for gripping or striking (Chisholm, 1911). They are typically stout, knotty, and made of Blackthorn (sloe) wood (Prunus spinosa) or oak (Chouinard, n.d.) and sometimes imbued with metal. Calling it Willow Staff might be ironic because while willow staves can make nice walking sticks, they are not good clubs, since it's much more brittle wood.

It could have been named directly from the materials or the tool/weapon could have been named after the location where it came from. The practice of making these is thought to have originated in the village of Shillelagh, County Wicklow, which was once surrounded by vast oak forests, where much of the material was harvested. The geographic name derives from Síol Éalaigh, which in English translates to "Descendents of Éalach (Carleton 1830: 426, Hurley 2007). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the etymology of the name has a root in a barony and village in County Wicklow, which provided the following quotation “1785 F. Grose Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue, Shillaley, an oaken sapling, or cudgel, (Irish) from wood of that name famous for its oaks”. Similarly, the Online Etymology Dictionary states that the first recorded use of shillelagh was either in 1772, to mean "cudgel," or from the 1670s, "oak wood used to make cudgels" but the use of Shillelagh as the town and barony in Co. Wicklow, Ireland, famous for its oaks had no date. This geographic connection is, however, likely not true as a true origin because these dated connections appear decades after the etymology based on the forms. Unfortunately, most of what we have now is a robust tourist trade which causes both of the original Irish names to end up with the same Anglicized pronunciation (Keenan 2003).

From a long footnote in Hall (1841) after the mention of the “…stout shillalah” as a weapon that every man in two rival factions was carrying when “hostilities” broke out.

“…from a famous wood, near Arklow in the county of Wicklow, where the best oaks and black thorns were grown. It was genernally about 3 ft long: sometimens a smaller one was used , call "a Kippeen" or "Cla' alpeen" and occasionally one of eight or ten ft long, called "a wattle" The peasantry were very choice in the selection of their national weapon, and especially careful in its preporation after it was cut. Sometimes it was tempered in a dung-heap; at others in slack line; but the more usual mode was to rub it over repeatadly with butter, and place it "up the chimney," where it was left for a period of several months. We have in our possession one that we have pretty good evidence had been actively engaged in every fair in the neighbourhood for above twenty years, and at length came into the hands of a manistrate, from whom we recieved it, in consequence of its owner having been transported for manslaughter at a fight."
(426-7).

As a cudgel, the stout sticks have been carried by people for around 12,000 years, according to artifacts found in Kenya (Lahr et al. 2016: 394–8, Chisholm 1911: 564).

“Combatants with Cudgel and Whip”, a Roman mosaic showing gladiators fighting in Nennig, Germany c. 2nd-3rd century CE.
*© Carole Raddato*

Cudgels and clubs were widely used because they are large and heavy objects to hit an enemy with, what could be simpler?

Picking out other instances, they were also carried by peasants during the Middle Ages, functioning as a walking staff and weapon for both self-defence and wartime. Then, during the 18th century single-stick fighting, a sport to train for the use of the single-handed backsword was called singlesticking, or cudgel-play. (Chisholm 1911). Just like in D&D, the wounds inflicted by a club are generally known as strike trauma, blunt-force trauma injuries, or bludgeoning damage [the type of damage the club or staff would inflict before the Shillelagh spell is cast].

According to researcher J. W. Hurley:

"Methods of shillelagh fighting have evolved over a period of thousands of years, from the spear, staff, axe and sword fighting of the Irish. There is some evidence which suggests that the use of Irish stick weapons may have evolved in a progression from a reliance on long spears and wattles, to shorter spears and wattles, to the shillelagh, alpeen, blackthorn (walking-stick) and short cudgel. By the 19th century Irish shillelagh-fighting had evolved into a practice which involved the use of three basic types of weapons, sticks which were long, medium or short in length." (Hurley 2007: 347).

Types

The first distinction we can make between shillelagh is: by function [what they were primarily designed for], by the shape of the head [which influences the function], or even by the type of wood. Because the earliest names for these weapons were "Cleithailpín", which just means 'a stick with a knob', 'a knobstick', or "bata", which just means stick or club, there is a wide variety of styles. And the bata was the weapon of choice in the Irish Stick Fighting, which will be discussed later. These styles had measurements ranging from the length of a walking stick, measuring between 3-5 feet (Hurley, 2007: 144,157), with one made for dueling and such, the bata or sticks could include short mallets only 1 – 2 feet long to long poles 6 – 9 feet (Fitzgerald 2010, Chouinard, n.d.).

Dueling Shillelagh

The dueling shillelagh was a type of shillelagh adapted primarily for one-on-one fighting, hence the name. It's a slightly lighter shaft that allows a bit more speed on defence, which could allow one to give the opponent “discouraging dings" or disarm them with quick strikes to the hand. This type of fighting style also shows up in modern Southeast Asian stick fighters' competition with rattan sticks, or towards the start of the last century in India with fighting canes. A duelling shillelagh could have a 'reasonably' heavy head, so it had the speed and “cut and thrust” advantages of a light cane, but could hit solidly when needed, although a “duel” with one wasn’t always a lethal encounter. In the c. 1700s-1800s, this style of shillelagh was commonly adopted as a gentleman’s accessory, specifically by military officers who had usually been trained in some form of swordplay that could apply to a shillelagh with the right proportions (Claymore Shillelaghs workshop).

Fair-Fighting Shillelagh

“Fair fighting” or “faction fighting” refers to a practice where groups of young men from one area would visit other areas (usually during fairs) and participate in semi-organised group stick fights. Interestingly, similar team fighting events existed as far away as Italy, Russia, and India, so it wasn't only an Irish fighting art. A shillelagh, however, that was made for this style would have a heavier and thicker shaft, both to survive an afternoon’s melee and to be able to make any hit count since in a 'scrum' one might not ever face an opponent for more than a few seconds. In these it was considered 'bad form' to have a weighted shillelagh, but "that’s not to say it didn’t happen" (Claymore Shillelaghs workshop, Fitzgerald 2014).

Defensive Shillelagh / Poacher’s Sticks

For defensive shillelagh any head would do, but the knobbier and more irregular the better, since they were only brought out for lethal intent. These versions were also likely heavier and generally shorter than other shillelagh for close-in fighting. Often, whether the knobs or bumps were left on the head of the shillelagh was what marked the distinction. While a smooth-headed shillelagh was made for a more comfortable walking stick and was more likely to deliver a survivable concussion as a sporting or duelling weapon, heads with a small bump or knob on it were more likely to break the skull itself and cause immediate death or death by cerebral trauma. So, bringing a shillelagh with “skull breakers” to a faction fight would be like bringing a real rifle to paintball. Poachers' sticks also refer to a kind of shillelagh, but are usually more heavily weighted, longer cross-country walking sticks. Whether these did turn up in the hands of poachers is hard to say but the literature refers to them in passing and intended for nefarious purposes. (Claymore Shillelaghs workshop).

Canes

An example of a New England style by Shillelaghs Workshop

The New England style shillelagh had heads that almost resembled conventional canes but were more “T” shaped with a little of the handle protruding forward (gripped by pointer and middle finger) and a little protruding back (wrapped by ring a pinky finger). Over time these evolved into an increasingly urbanised populace who took to using the fashionable light, slim, and very straight shillelagh, suited to being easy to carry walking sticks. In this form, the shillelagh, which was otherwise culturally denigrated (we think of a traditional weapon from a rural and historically “othered” ethnic group), was established in urban populations throughout the United Kingdom. The shillelagh style canes, however, tended to be thick enough to be useful in the hands of those trained in European fencing, savate, or Japanese arts (often taught as “Bartitsu” after the fiercely-moustachioed E.W. Barton-Wright who popularised them). This may be why, in period-action films, fancy canes are almost always used as a possible head-splitting weapon. Eventually, this form changed into the more cane-like New England shillelagh, which can look the same as conventional canes but for a much larger, thicker handle (occasionally filled with lead). (Claymore Shillelaghs workshop).

“Claymore” Style

Claymore Shillelagh Workshop’s “Claymore Shillelagh”

Lastly, some didn’t have a distinct head and the weight at the 'top' comes from a shaft that quickly thickens towards one end with enough room to be hollowed out to hold the molten lead shot in the "hitting end" (Claymore Shillelaghs workshop, Fitzgerald 2010). This is known as a “loaded stick”. Branches like this tend to come from slow-growing trees that grow in low or poorly lit conditions, so they are not easy to find. The shillelagh made of Blackthorn are generally so heavy that there is no need to “load” them as they come “preloaded” (Fitzgerald, 2010). The “Claymore” style of shillelagh, the name of which came from the Claymore Shillelagh company is not new with the special name that refers to a shillelagh where the bulb of the head projects forward over the shaft. This makes this type easier to carry as a walking stick (since it can be carried by the first two fingers of the hand and tends to fall back into the hand when lifted). The forward-projecting head also acts as a hand guard when gripped in a sword-style grip, both protecting the hand and giving extra leverage for faster movements (Claymore Shillelaghs workshop).

Fighting Style

The Shillelagh, referred to as bata when used in this case, was the primary weapon used in Bataireacht – a form of traditional Irish stick fighting popular in the 18th and 19th centuries (O'Connell 2022). During the 18th century bataireacht was practiced primarily with Irish gangs called “factions” who often fought each other at gatherings and social events like the fair, wake, or holidays (ex. Saint’s Feast Day). While most of these fights were purely for sport they eventually took on a political and violent edge as the years went on. It is also interesting to note the link between hurling and shillelagh bata. Hurling is a very old Gaelic sport, which is still very popular in Ireland, resembling La Crosse in which an axe-like stick, resembling a shillelagh, is used (Conley, 1999; Chouinard, n.d.). This sport used to be for training youngsters in warfare and teamwork tactics and, sadly, it was not rare for people to be killed in such games (Conley, 1999), and faction fighters were often very close to hurling groups. The hurling stick was used as a weapon in faction fights (Hurley, 2007). Faction fights remained a common occurrence up until the 1840s and the last recorded brawl took place in 1887 at a fair in Co. Tipperary and these were often shows for fun and entertainment (Fitzgerald, 2010). So, by this point in the 19th Century Shillelagh fighting evolved into a martial art. Fathers taught their sons how to fight and many young boys received shillelaghs as a significant rite of manhood. Some boys were educated in the ways of the Shillelagh by the local Maighistir Prionnsa or 'fencing master' "(Claymore Shillelaghs workshop). These advanced fighters grab two sticks and throw down in a Troid de Bata or “two-stick fight”. The stick of the offhand is used as a shield (Fitzgerald, 2010).

Legends of Magic

There are many generations of mythological significant Irish cycles that I will not be delving into here [see OSP for a very brief Irish origin myth to see why].

But if the word shillelagh came into use around 1670 and was a general term for a stick, club, or cudgel used as a weapon, or walking stick, and may have been seen as a good luck charm. This idea is tainted by more recent ideas like the “Lucky Charm” style shillelaghs, a thin shaft attached to a round section of wood, basically what stereotypical leprechauns are almost always drawn carrying.

An 1892 depiction of a leprechaun-like man carrying a shillelagh walking stick.
Magic user by chuckdee.jpg added by Netherith
Leprechaun: A fairy-shoe maker (My Modern Met, 2021)
A stock photo of the leprechaun, the legend has taken on a life of its own, with elements borrowed from the luchorpán and the clúrachán.

There’s no actual historical evidence for a folk belief around these as “lucky charms” and thus everything written is speculation as to how these came to be identified as a cultural artifact.

Historically one way to condition/dry a shillelagh after curing it was to hang it in the flue of a chimney or over a fireplace, so some writers believe this effected various changes to the wood to harden or lighten it and with more discussing the process as converting the wood to a harder material. If this latter belief is true it seems likely that this sort of magic would have appeared in early mythology. So, because it's not talked about outside the lore of modern shillelagh-making, it likely is not an ancient mythological holdover.

Looking back at the general history of the region, there was plenty of time when Ireland was being run by an occupying military from a disparate culture. If some members of the military asked a householder why they had a thick piece of wood with a big knot on the end hanging over the mantelpiece they would have some explaining to do. Maybe, over time, rather than explaining to the local bailiff that they were following traditions by conditioning a weapon that their village had been making for over 400 years, a householder could shrug it off, replying, “Those are just for good luck” (Claymore Shillelaghs workshop).

Shillelaghs in Song

Other than appearing in D&D and a possibly very expensive souvenir that one never actually uses, the shillelagh appears in folk songs. A song from the 18th century, "The Sprig of Shillelagh" is also known to have popularized the term and exported it through Irish immigration and talks about the presumed last great oak tree from the grand forest. More recent appearances in music, like by the Dubliners, in the 1960s, brought heaps of traditional Irish ballads, folk songs, and drinking songs into pop culture with new bands making new covers for new generations. A couple of examples are "The Rocky Road to Dublin" and "Finnegan's Wake", the original versions of which were published in the 19th century. D. K. Gavan wrote "The Galway Poet" [the original title for "The Rocky Road to Dublin"] for the English music hall performer Harry Clifton (1824–1872) (The Era magazine, 22 February 1863), and "Finnegan's Wake" was an Irish-American comic ballad, first published in New York in 1864 (McNally, 2019). The ballad “Finnegan’s Wake” is generally thought to have coined the term 'shillelagh law' within the phrase "Shillelagh law did all engage", referring to a brawl, signifying that a fight has broken out because "shillelagh law" itself has been explained as meaning the accepted rule governing the usage of the weapon (Crowley 1996; Hurley, 2007: 11). And in “The Rocky Road to Dublin” the singer describes how he fashions a shillelagh to use as a striking weapon to defend himself against bandits and highwaymen, “cut a stout, blackthorn to banish ghosts and goblins”. In the later story of the lyrics, the main character engages them in a fight using his blackthorn shillelagh, but is outnumbered until a group of Irishmen from Galway come to his rescue and let him get to Dublin:

"The boys in Liverpool, when on the dock I landed.
Called myself a fool, I could no longer stand it;
My blood began to boil, my temper I was losing.
And poor old Erin's Isle, they all began abusing.
"Hurrah! my boys," says I, my shillelagh I let fly.
Some Galway boys were by, they saw I was a hobbling;
Then with a loud "hurrah !" they joined me in the fray.
Faugh-a-ballagh! Clear the way! for the rocky road to Dublin!"

- Manus O'Connor in 1901

But What is it Really?

D&D has had a druid spell called “Shillelagh” in its rules for almost 40 years, in which the spell enables the player to take an ordinary club or quarterstaff (early editions required an oak club) and make it magical to hurt creatures immune to normal damage, and can give have various bonuses in combat depending on the edition (D&D Basic Rules, Claymore Shillelaghs workshop). The idea of a shillelagh being magic might come from two ideas. Firstly shillelagh were natural objects and to a druidic or animistic culture, every interaction with nature could have carried spiritual importance. Nature could intentionally bless or reward someone with the perfect shillelagh staff and was seen as nature, in the form of a single tree or an entire forest, giving a gift to the finder. Thus, the finder must have had a great spiritual affinity with nature, or the stick itself had been imbued with that sense of spiritual blessing to the wielder. So, like the mana of other tools/weapons/pieces of art that a person might carry the rest of their life and be buried with may have felt like a very concentrated and enduring form of this spiritual blessing from the natural world.

The shillelagh could have come from many possible tree species, the common ancient examples being oak, hazel, gorse (furze) and ivy, and more recently used species like blackthorn, acacia, and even rhododendron or rosewood. The most important for the Celtic people of the area would have been the wood from the Iron oak. This particular tree species is believed to have been extremely important in Druidic worship (Forest 2014). The Druidic culture may have venerated them as the Vikings and English did based on the trees’ reach toward the heavens and the strength displayed when surviving lightning strikes (Forest 2014).

Frontispiece to James Ware's De Hibernia & Antiquitatibus Ejus, Disquisitiones, 1658. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.

Tradition states that a shillelagh was made when a young Irishman would plant two oak trees (also an important economic crop at the time); one tree would be used to make his fighting club, and one would make his coffin. Twisted by people in modern, urban environments, the meaning and use changed the lore to mean that around the age of 14, a boy would uproot an oak tree of the same age and carry it around as a club. As people are said to have done with blackthorn plants once Irish Oaks became scarce. But, a fourteen-year-old oak tree would be so large that this would be impossible. It is more likely, that the old tradition may have referred to a young man having a single oak tree that he would make all his shillelaghs from and might also be the tree from which his coffin was made, but left to stand in the forest in the meantime. This echoes the basic idea of a special spiritual connection to a certain tree or grove. This connection to the trees became increasingly important to Irish identities as the countryside was being cleared. As Irish independence and cultural identity were being ripped away so too was the arboreal landscape (Barth 2001: 55, Yen 2020: 132). This led to the use of the goddess Hibernia, one of the names the Greeks and Romans gave to the island of Ireland. In an 1780 illustration the tree that Hibernia is standing under while dealing with suiters was inscribed ‘Shelaley’ with a shamrock wreath hanging off a branch (Yen 2020: 132). The thriving of Irish wood, and more specifically Shillelagh oak, and its use in English government buildings fueled the backlash to colonialism and the fight for social justice (Yen 2020: 134-6). The trees would later be called “Trees of Liberty” in notes by the Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle in the late 1840s and early 1850s (Yen 2020: 136).

In “Faction Fights”, a sporting event that was not quite a riot, in the form of a mass team stick-fight. In my mind, it's like a sword fight at a pirate or Renaissance fair, but bigger, or like a LARP, but with real weapons, even though no one is trying to kill each other. These faction fights would occur on the feast or market days and would have become associated (in Ireland’s Christian tradition) with the feast days of particular saints. Before too long people could come to make the cultural association between the feast day, the religious figure, and the weapon itself (Claymore Shillelaghs workshop).

Final Wrap Up

The modern shillelagh can take a wide range of forms but are very close in execution or intention to the ancient weapons they derive from. While they are now mainly used as walking sticks, they still harken back to a tradition of arms, celebration, and nature that reaches back to the bronze age. Part of their beauty remains the same though, they are an object from nature that reminds us that we exist because of the “blessings” of the ecosystems that support us – however remotely we live from them. Maybe the inspiration for naming a spell that gives an extra boost to hit opponents was that; the finishing/conditioning of a tool makes it stronger and/or the writers knew some Irish history and folklore and wanted to incorporate the importance of nature sneakily. Or, maybe I'm overthinking it.

While they are used as a weapon, whether in fights or play, the Shillelagh has a deeper meaning. As they are made from wood they have a built-in connection to the Earth and the roots of the Irish people. They are branches that reach through time and steady all who hold them as belonging to a part of something bigger. Most people who buy one today may not understand the significance of the anticolonial, the freedom, and the justice imbued within the staff that they wield. Still, the magic they can impart is far more potent than just a heavy carved stick.

Work Cited

Barry, Michael (2013). Dublin's Strangest Tales: Extraordinary but True Stories. Pavilion Books. p. 9.

Barth, E. (2001). Shamrocks, Harps, and Shillelaghs: The Story of the St. Patrick's Day Symbols. United States: Clarion Books.

Carleton, William (1830). Traits and stories of the Irish peasantry (Irish Heritage Series): 426.

Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Club". Encyclopædia Britannica. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 564.

Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Single-stick". Encyclopædia Britannica. 25(11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 148–149.

Chouinard, M. (n.d.). The Stick is King: The Shillelagh Bata or the rediscovery of a living Irish martial tradition.

Conley, Carolyn. (1999). The agreeable recreation of fighting. Journal of Social History, vol. 33, no. 1. pp. 57-72.

Crosland, T. W. H. (1905). The Wild Irishman. London: TW Laurie.

Crowley, T. (1996). James Joyce: Here Comes Everyword (The Percival Lecture). Literary and Philosophical Society, 133.

Dolan, T. P. (2006). A dictionary of Hiberno-English. Gill & Macmillan Ltd.

Fitzgerald, B. (2010, Dec 03). How shillelagh fighting evolved into an Irish martial art. IrishCentral.Com. https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/the-shillelagh-a-brief-history-of-the-irish-fighting-stick-111255159-237767481.

Forest, D. (2014). Celtic Tree Magic: Ogham Lore and Druid Mysteries. United States: Llewellyn Worldwide, Limited.

Greene, L. (2000). Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 89 (353), 90-92. Retrieved March 19, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/30095334.

Hurley, J. W. (2007). Shillelagh: The Irish Fighting Stick. United Kingdom: Lulu.com.

Keenan, Mark (1 June 2003). "Ireland: Tunnel vision brings history to life". The Sunday Times.

Lahr, M. Mirazón; Rivera, F.; Power, R. K.; Mounier, A.; Copsey, B.; Crivellaro, F.; Edung, J. E.; Fernandez, J. M. Maillo; Kiarie, C. (2016). "Inter-group violence among early Holocene hunter-gatherers of West Turkana, Kenya". Nature. 529 (7586): 394–398.

Leach, M. (1957). Western Folklore, 16(4) by B.A.Botkin. pp. 299-301. doi:10.2307/1496032

McNally, Frank. (5 November 2019). 'Manhattan Transfer'. An Irishman's Diary. The Irish Times.

My Modern Met. (2021, March 17). A “Wee” History of the Leprechaun, a Character from Irish Folklore. https://mymodernmet.com/what-is-a-leprechaun/.

O'Connell, Ronan (2022). "Bataireacht: The ancient Irish martial art making a comeback". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 10 November 2023.

"Shillelagh". etymonline.com. Online Etymology Dictionary.

"Shillelagh". Oxford English Dictionary (Second Edition, Volume 15).

Steuart, J. A. (1896). DUBLIN AS IT IS. The Windsor magazine: an illustrated monthly for men and women, 5, 446-457.

Yen, B. C. (2020). Ireland and the Rhetoric of Trees. The Irish Review (Cork), 55, 131–151. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48649871