Rince an Bhata Uisce Bheatha (Doyle Irish Stick Fighting)
A family line of Irish stick fighting that the Doyles preserved in Newfoundland. The stick is held in both hands and the fighting is mostly at close range.
Quick Facts
IrelandCharacter & Origin
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
About Rince an Bhata Uisce Bheatha (Doyle Irish Stick Fighting)
Rince an Bhata Uisce Bheatha is a family line of Irish stick fighting preserved by the Doyles in Newfoundland. The Canadian magazine Saturday Night (2004) gives the name as uisce beatha bata rince and translates it as dance with the whiskey stick. The whiskey, it says, referred to the distilleries the founder guarded, and dance was a code word for stick fighting.
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The origin differs between sources. The BBC writes that Glen Doyle's ancestors left Wexford for Newfoundland in the early nineteenth century. Saturday Night names Edward Doyle, a brawler from Galway who left Ireland in 1867 and settled in Conception Bay. The line's website traces the line from Edward through Christopher and Gregory to Glen. We have not been able to verify a founder by name, and the website speaks only of the Doyle family in the west of Ireland in the early nineteenth century. According to the BBC, the style was passed on only to people named Doyle, and Glen learned it from his father and grandfather. According to Saturday Night, Glen Doyle is the first to teach it outside the family, and by his own words he began teaching his first outside student in 1995. The BBC describes the Doyle line as a two-handed blend of boxing, fencing and shillelagh stick wrestling. Glen Doyle later handed the title of head of the line, chieftain, to Bernie Leddy, and according to the BBC clubs are springing up across Northern Ireland.
History
The BBC reports that Glen Doyle's ancestors left Wexford for Newfoundland in the early nineteenth century, and the family's two-handed style was passed only to people named Doyle. Saturday Night (2004), by contrast, writes about Edward Doyle, a Galway brawler who left Ireland in 1867 and ended up in Conception Bay. According to the magazine, Glen is his great-grandson, and his father Gregory, the only one of fifteen siblings who learned the art, died in 1998. The lineage's website says Edward passed the art to his son Christopher, he to Gregory, and Gregory to his son Glen. According to the website, the two-handed grip was introduced by a boxer from the Doyle family in the west of Ireland, also skilled in one-handed Irish stick fighting. According to the Fermanagh Herald (2019), Bernard Leddy found Glen Doyle online as the only one teaching the style, went to learn in Toronto, and opened a club in Mullaghdun in County Fermanagh.
How it differs
According to the lineage's website, the one-handed style holds the stick high by the head and works from farther away, while the two-handed style holds it across the body at shoulder height and closes the distance first. In disarming, it adds the Windmill technique and hooking with the knobbed end to the hand strikes. The Doyle lineage holds the stick two-handed almost always, while the Antrim lineage, which the Ramsey family kept according to Maxime Chouinard, changes grip with distance, he says. We have not found competitions in the Doyle lineage in reliable sources.
Technique
The BBC describes the Doyle lineage as a two-handed blend of boxing, fencing and fighting with the shillelagh, a long blackthorn or oak club. According to the Fermanagh Herald, Bernie Leddy describes a full-contact style with strikes by stick, fists and feet. The lineage's website says both hands are on the stick almost always and most techniques are for close range. According to the website, the close-range stick strike is two-handed, with the hands spread evenly on the stick so either can strike. Its main purpose, according to the website, is to start the Charge In, a close-quarters attack, because the style has the advantage up close. According to the website, the stick is about three feet long, measured as the distance between the elbows with fists clenched before the chest plus six inches, and is most often blackthorn, but also oak and ash. The website lists techniques such as Basic Stance, Stick Punch, Charge In, Pivotal, Say Hello, Give 'em a Hug, Windmill, Jig Kick and Carry the Coffin.
Training
According to an interview on the lineage's website, Glen Doyle started boxing at four and the stick came later, while elsewhere the website says he began learning the style at seven. Training began with punches and shadow boxing, then came blackthorn stick strikes and footwork, and his father corrected his form with a sharp blow to the head. Glen Doyle calls the style an oral tradition passed on by example and word, without manuals or videos. Students learn from their teacher, called a seanchaí, and train with a partner. According to the website, the Trinity drill is continuous fast stick strikes to three points, the head, left hand and right hand, improving aim and stick control.
Ranks and progression
According to the BBC, the lineage uses numbered coaching levels: thirteen-year-old Loughlin became a fourth-level coach a year earlier, according to the article. The lineage head holds the title chieftain, which Glen Doyle passed to Bernie Leddy. In an interview on the lineage's website, Glen Doyle names five levels from lowest to highest: Iasc (fish), Bradán (salmon), Lon dubh (blackbird), Cág (jackdaw) and Madra rua (fox). By his own account, he rarely uses the system.
Today
According to the BBC (around 2011), the Doyle method is taught in Canada, the USA, Germany, Austria, Greece and Mexico. A later BBC article says that Glen Doyle, one of the last registered instructors in the world, passed the title of head of the lineage, chieftain, to Bernie Leddy, who trained with him in Canada, and that clubs are springing up all over Northern Ireland from Dunmurry to Enniskillen. According to IrishCentral, Leddy oversaw roughly fifty schools and study groups in Ireland, the United Kingdom, the USA, Taiwan, Mexico, Czechia and Egypt. According to the Fermanagh Herald, the club in Mullaghdun is open to men and women older than thirteen years. According to Hurley, Glen Doyle teaches at the Céad Bua club in Toronto.
Did you know
According to the late Gregory Doyle, the word dance got into the name of the style in order to hide the martial art. Saturday Night (2004) reports that Glen Doyle is a former kung fu champion and taught kung fu to the Olympic figure skater Elvis Stojko. Glen Doyle recalls that his father grappled with cousins and a few good blows were said to have landed.
Frequently asked questions
What does Rince an Bhata Uisce Bheatha mean?
According to the magazine Saturday Night (2004), dance with the whiskey stick. The whiskey referred to the distilleries the founder guarded, and dance was a code word for stick fighting.
Who leads the line today?
According to the BBC, Glen Doyle handed the title of head of the line, chieftain, to Bernie Leddy, and clubs are springing up across Northern Ireland. According to IrishCentral, he oversaw roughly fifty schools and groups in several countries including Czechia.
How long is the stick?
According to the line's website, about three feet, measured elbow to elbow with fists clenched before the chest, plus six inches. Usually made of blackthorn.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.