Collar-and-elbow

Wrestling as a competitive sport has been recorded in Ireland as far back as the second millennium BC, when it featured as one of the many athletic contests held during the annual Tailteann Games.[3] The mythical hero Cúchulainn boasted of his prowess in both hurling and wrestling, and was on one occasion enraged by an undead spectre mockingly suggesting that his skill in the latter area had been highly exaggerated.[4] Carved depictions of two figures in a recognisable wrestling clinch appear on the Market High Cross of Kells[5] and the ruins of a church at Kilteel[6] (both 9th century AD), and wrestling matches were common features of country fairs until at least the 18th century.[7]

These wrestling contests were occasionally violent affairs. Participants could be and were frequently injured, sometimes fatally so, as in the case of a contest between one Thomas Costello (known locally as "Tumaus Loidher" - Thomas the Strong) and an unnamed champion in which Costello ostensibly squeezed on his opponent's harness so powerfully that it broke the man's spine.[8] There appear to have been little or no attempts to moderate these violent aspects of wrestling from a legal point of view; as historian Edward MacLysaght noted in his account of the match, as the participant in a sporting contest Costello had little to fear in terms of official retribution.[9]

These accounts of early Irish wrestling matches all describe participants taking a diverse range of grips on their opponents - from clutching at any available limb in the time of Cúchulainn, to a backhold-style clinch on the carvings at Kells and Kilteel, to both hands holding a belt in the match between Thomas Costello and his ill-fated opponent.[10] However, by the 18th century a new form of grip had established itself as the favoured hold: right hand grabbing the opponent's collar, left hand grabbing the sleeve of their jacket at the elbow. This position, and all its associated techniques and strategies, was to quickly emerge as the dominant framework under which Irish wrestling matches were contested.

In the 19th century, Collar and Elbow wrestling was one of the most widely practised sporting activities in the country - "the chief physical sport of the male population from childhood to mature manhood".[1] Bouts took place between local champions and challengers on a parish level, and those between the most well-known and skilled wrestlers could draw thousands of spectators from across neighbouring counties. Although it was primarily referred to by its English name, Collar and Elbow is known to have had at least two names in Irish: "Coiléar agus Uille" (a literal translation of Collar and Elbow) and "brollaidheacht". The latter derives from the term for the front of a shirt ("brollach léine") and thus "brollaidheacht" could be translated as "collaring"[2] - a reference to the grip that wrestlers were required to take on each other's jackets.

Victory was determined by a "fall", the definition of which differed from county to county. In Kildare a wrestler was deemed to have won if he made his opponent touch the ground with any single part of his body above the knees, whereas in Dublin he was required to make three points of his opponent's body touch the ground (usually both shoulders and a hip, or both hips and a shoulder).[11] A significant difference between Collar and Elbow as it was practised in Ireland and the United States is that, in its Irish incarnation, shin-kicking was routinely permitted. This, coupled with the fact that many participants wore heavy work boots, resulted in a level of injury among Irish wrestlers not usually seen among their US counterparts. Shins were frequently "gored and/or bruised" after a match, and on rare occasions outright broken.[11]

Admirers of the style nonetheless lauded its "eminently scientific and picturesque"[1] virtues. In particular, they claimed that, since the opening stance prevented the "bull-like charges, flying tackles, or other onrushes" common in other wrestling styles, Collar and Elbow encouraged participants to develop "deftness, balance, and leverage allied with strength, [which permitted] a man to win by means of skill instead of sheer might and weight".[12]

As levels of Irish emigration to the United States steadily increased throughout the 17th–19th centuries, so too did the presence of the Irish cultural traditions they brought with them - including their wrestling style. New England in general, and Vermont in particular, emerged as an early stronghold of Collar and Elbow after it had been introduced by immigrants largely from County Kildare.[1] During the US Civil War, Vermont regiments introduced the style to other units in the Army of the Potomac,[12] and in that way it acquired immense popularity among men from other regions of the United States who might otherwise never have encountered it. By the time the Civil War ended, Collar and Elbow had emerged as one of the most common rulesets under which wrestling bouts were contested nationwide.

Bouts drew large and enthusiastic crowds across the country, and purses of several hundred dollars were routinely offered for championship contests.[13][14][15] Vermont continued to remain a significant force in the Collar and Elbow world throughout, with two of the style's most notable 19th-century practitioners, Henry Moses Dufur and John McMahon, hailing from Franklin County. Practitioners of Collar and Elbow in general were colloquially referred to as "scufflers" (occasionally "trippers" in reference to the leg-centric strategies they employed), and a Collar and Elbow bout itself as "scuffling" or a "scuffling bee".[12][16]

Although there are accounts of bouts being held in which the combatants were shirtless - particularly in rural areas during the summer months[12] - in its standardised competitive form Collar and Elbow required both participants to wear jackets or heavy shirts that could be gripped and used to set up throwing techniques. A similar requirement exists in other Celtic styles like Cornish wrestling and Breton Gouren. At wrestling events in Dublin, a common method of issuing a challenge was to place a jacket in the centre of the ring and wait for a contender to step in and put it on.[11] In Ireland - and in the early days in the United States - there were no standardised requirements for the durability or the length of the jacket. This occasionally led to disputes between prospective opponents when one party believed that the other's attire provided him with an unfair advantage, such as the one that occurred between Patrick Cullen and Paddy Dunne in which Dunne alleged that Cullen's long cavalry officer's coat would prevent him from seeing and defending against his leg techniques. Contests were occasionally even called off mid-bout when a jacket ripped or was otherwise unable to bear the rigours of a prolonged wrestling match.[1] The Dufur rules of the 19th century were the first to specifically state that any jacket used for a Collar and Elbow bout had to be "tight-fitting, with strongly sewn seams". This prescription was mirrored in the Ed James rules, which also elaborated that the jacket should not reach below the wrestler's hips so that their leg attacks would be freely visible.

Subsequently, a dedicated leather harness was developed to act as a potential substitute for the jacket. The invention of the harness is attributed to Homer Lane, a three-time national Collar and Elbow champion of the United States.[20][21] It saw somewhat frequent use in both the US and Canada, but in general the majority of Collar and Elbow bouts continued to be held using the requisite durable jackets.

In his 1959 book Magnificent Scufflers, author Charles Morrow Wilson proposed that, even after Collar and Elbow had vanished as a standalone style, it continued to exert an influence on the strategies and techniques used in American collegiate wrestling. He specifically highlighted the "foot and leg plays, beginning with foot trips, the heel blocks, and the forward leg trips and working upwards to hip rolls" as "obvious but not deliberate borrowings from Collar and Elbow", and attributed them to the technical innovations introduced by Oklahoma coach Edward C. Gallagher. It should however be noted that neither of Gallagher's self-penned technique manuals, Amateur Wrestling (1925)[28] and Wrestling (1939),[28] mention Collar and Elbow in any way (apart from a lone reference where the term "collar and elbow" is used to describe a single collar tie).