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| General Information |
Collar-and-elbow or coraíocht is an Irish wrestling style with a long history. Collar-and-elbow is like the English Cornish wrestling and the French Gouren a Celtic wrestling style.Competitors wore a jacket and were barefooted. They would grab the opponents jacket at the shoulder and elbow. The goal of collar-and-elbow was typically to score three falls by holding the opponent at three or four points down (shoulders and hips) for up to five seconds, depending on the variation. During the sport’s formalization in 17th century Ireland, the standard was a four-point pin for five seconds (health ahoy, s.d.). Recent matches executed according to Ruadhán MacFadden recovered and revised rules are over once the opponent is successfully pinned down for 3 seconds (MacFadden 2019b).Most strikes were not allowed with the exception of kicks to the lower body which were used for takedowns. |
| History/Development |
From the 17th until the 19th century collar-and-elbow was the most popular sport in Ireland (MacFadden 2019).Coraíocht competitions likely took place in the Irish Tailteann Games, which have a history as far back as the 7th century BC. Though its history for the following two millennia is scarcely recorded, the sport began to surge in popularity in Ireland again in the 17th century AD. During this period, coraíocht became an eminent spectator sport, even reaching the point that most successful wrestlers could earn their living from it (health ahoy, s.d.).Due to the sport’s popularity in Ireland it spread to the United States with the Irish migrants in the 18th century where it became a very successful form of grappling at the time. It became especially popular in the northern states during the Civil War period. Later it became one of the roots of the Amateur Athletic Union’s American freestyle wrestling and formed the basis of American professional wrestling in de 1870s and 1880s (Archer and Svinth 2001). |
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(Policies/institutions) |
The martial art almost disappeared in the early 20th century. But recently there has been an increased interest. Ruadhán MacFadden tried to reconstruct the rules and style. In 2019 he published a rulebook that is the result of ongoing research (MacFadden 2019a). A seminar on the topic and matches using those rules have been held in August 2019 in Heidelberg, Germany. Participants from Estonia, Belgium, Germany, the US, UK, and Poland attended (MacFadden 2019b). |
| Relevant Organisations |
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| Additional Materials |
- Researcher Ruadhán MacFadden’s website:
https://thousandholds.net/about/
- A video documenting the August 2019 matches in Heidelberg, Germany:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGP0AwtLb9U
- Ad podcast by Ruadhán MacFadden (2018):
http://thousandholds.net/episode-1-irish-collar-and-elbow/
- Video about Irish wrestling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtggP5WH5EM&feature=youtu.be |
| References |
- Health ahoy. (s.d.). “Irish Coraíocht (Collar and Elbow)”, Health ahoy.
https://healthahoy.com/ancient-sports/irish-coraiocht-collar-elbow/
- Archer, J. & Svinth, J. (2001). “Wrestling, Professional”. In Green, Thomas A. (ed.). Martial arts of the world: an encyclopedia, Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.
- MacFadden, R. (2019a). August 2019 Competition Rules Collar & Elbow.
http://thousandholds.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Collar-and-Elbow-Competition-Ruleset-v1.1.pdf
- MacFadden, R. (2019b), “Magnificent Scuffling: The First Irish Collar & Elbow Matches in Over 100 Years”, ICM News.
http://www.unescoicm.org/eng/notice/qna.php?ptype=view&idx=6356&page=2&code=qna_eng | | |
