Barróg
Barróg depicted on the Market High Cross of Kells (9th century AD)
Also known asBarrogue
FocusGrappling
Country of originRepublic of Ireland Ireland
Olympic sportNo

Barróg was a style of folk wrestling practiced in Ireland until the early 20th century. It was a type of backhold wrestling, similar to Scottish Backhold and Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling.

Name

In the Irish language, the word “barróg” simply means “hug” or “embrace”. From there, it came to be used as the Irish name for backhold wrestling,[1] in reference to the fact that both competitors were required to engage with each other in a chest-to-chest, hug-like clinch.

Occasionally the style was referred to by the anglicised version of its name - Barrogue.[2] On at least one occasion, it was misspelled in an American source as “Borrogbe wrestling”.[3]

History

There are several folk wrestling styles of Western Europe and Northern Europe that involve competitors taking each other in a backhold clinch, such as the aforementioned Scottish Backhold and Cumberland and Westmorland styles, as well as a now-extinct variant of Icelandic Glima known as hryggspenna (“back-spanning”). It is unknown exactly when Barróg arose – or arrived – in Ireland, but there are carved depictions of figures in recognisable backhold clinches dating as far back as the 9th century AD.[4][5]

The characteristic backhold grip is mentioned in two separate 15th-century accounts of battlefield wrestling - one in the Cath Finntrágha[6] and another in the Táin Bó Flidhais.[7] The Mac Suibhne (Sweeney) clan of County Donegal incorporated backhold wrestling imagery on a 16th-century memorial slab for one of their more prominent members, Niall Mór Mac Suibhne.[8] The same clan once used a wrestling match to decide a dispute over leadership.[9] Such matches were a common form of entertainment in more recreational settings as well, as evidenced by Irish genealogist Edward MacLysaght's description of competitors at a 17th-century country fair wrestling in what he called a “hug” position.[10]

By the 18th and 19th century, Irish wrestling both at home and abroad had become dominated largely by the Collar and Elbow style, but there are records of Barróg matches persisting in the west of Ireland until the early decades of the 20th century.[11]

Rules

There is no record of any written ruleset for Barróg, so it is unclear exactly how bouts were conducted. Given the extent to which the other backhold styles of Europe resemble each other, it is probable that Barróg contests utilised a similar framework. That is, an entirely standing style of wrestling in which one competitor wins when they make the other touch the ground with anything other than the soles of their feet. This is supported by an account of backhold wrestling from County Sligo that appears in the Irish Folklore Commission's Schools' Collection.

"Wrestling is another game we play. The way to play it is - two boys take each other by the back and try to throw each other. Whoever falls first loses the game."[12]

In addition, it was noted that Barróg in the west of Ireland had certain features in common with the backhold wrestling practised in the Hebrides, such as the phrase uttered by referees at the beginning of a bout: "Lámh in íochdar, lámh in uachdar" ("One hand down, one hand up").[13]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ An Roinn Oideachais. Téarmaí Cluichidheachta. Irish Dept. of Education, 1900, pg.35.
  2. ↑ Freeman's Journal, 26 October 1841. "While he was looking for my elbow, McKeown there was crying out fair play, and I watching to nudge my right leg in his ham and make him give under the inside hook, or in case that failing me, then to put the barrogue on him, draw him over my hip, and plant him fair in the gravel."
  3. ↑ The Buffalo Courier, 12 November 1902. "Donnelly came next and he put up a desperate fight, but was outclassed by his tricky countryman. Jerry was downed a couple of times, but kept on struggling gamely, never admitting a fall. He afterwards dared McInerney to meet him at his (Jerry's) 'borrogbe' style of wrestling, but Mac declined to deviate from Lancashire style."
  4. ↑ Allen, J. Romilly. Early Christian Symbolism in Great Britain and Ireland before the Thirteenth Century. Cambridge University Press, 2016, p. 235
  5. ↑ "Kilteel Romanesque Church". Megalithicireland.com. Retrieved 2022-08-16.
  6. ↑ The Cath Finntrága or Battle of Ventry. Clarendon Press, 1885, pp. 27-28. "And when now the night had come, and when their weapons were broken, and their shields split, they did not leave off from each other, as it is customary to put off combat if night should come on, but they made a strong angry awful rush at each other, and closed their nimble strong hands across each other, and gave each other quick dexterous pulls, so that they made the white sandy shore seethe. And they continued in that embrace, until the tide of the sea came and spread between them and the land, and such was the fury of those two, that they did not give up their place of combat, till the tide of the sea came over them, so that they were both drowned before the eyes of the hosts of the world and of the fianns of Erinn. And an exceeding great cry was raised by the hosts of the world and the fianns of Erinn, bewailing those two. And it is there they were found on the morrow upon the beach, and their hands locked hard across one another's graceful backs, and their feet were tightly locked through each other, and the nose of the son of the king of Ulster was in the mouth of the foreigner, and his chin was in the mouth of the youth, and it was necessary to cut the foreigner in disentangling them."
  7. ↑ Mackinnon, Donald (trans.). The Glenmasan Manuscript. CELT Corpus of Electronic Texts : University College Cork, 2009, pg. 205. "Then they stretched their hands across each other's mighty shoulders. And they had a wrestling bout, furious, sustained, and strong, so that they twisted each other's stout bodies, and strained ribs and sides, and pulled each other's heads to the ground."
  8. ↑ "An illustration of the stone tomb slab of Niall Mór Mac Suibhne".
  9. ↑ Walsh, Paul (Ed.). Leabhar Chlainne Suíbhne: An Account of the Mac Sweeney Families in Ireland, with Pedigrees. Dollard Printing House, 1920, pg. 57. "And concerning the chieftainship there arose a contention between Ruaidhrí Mac Suibhne and Donnchadh Garbh 'the Rough' Mac Suibhne, his own father's brother. The decision they came to was to decide the affair by wrestling. Ruaidhrí won in the wrestling, and he retained the chieftainship from that time forward."
  10. ↑ MacLysaght, Edward. Irish Life in the Seventeenth Century. Irish Academic Press, 1979, pg. 151.
  11. ↑ Irish Independent, 1 December 1951. "Schoolboys have always delighted in wrestling for the sake of the sport, and usually kept their tempers. The style they practice is what is called 'Barrog' (Barrogue). In my school days we were not taught Irish, and we thought the word was English. Later I found in Dineen's Dictionary that the meaning of the word is an embrace, a hold (in wrestling), a tight grip."
  12. ↑ "Kilmactranny | the Schools' Collection".
  13. ↑ Baxter, William. 'Wrestling, The Ancient Modern Sport.' In Popular Games: Eclipse and Revival. From Traditions to the Regions of the Europe of Tomorrow. Paper presented at European Traditional Sports and Games Association (ETSGA), Carhaix, France, 1998.
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