Devon Wrestling and Irish Collar-and-Elbow: Two Lost Arts, One Shared Mission

A St Patrick’s Day celebration of the two great outplay traditions of the British Isles — separated by the Irish Sea, united in London’s great Victorian wrestling taverns, and revived, two centuries later, on both sides of the water.

I. A toast across the water

On this year’s St Patrick’s Day, we raised a glass to the Irish wrestlers.

Not the modern Olympic athletes — impressive as they are — but the older breed. The collar-and-elbow men. The ones who took a firm grip on each other’s jackets, planted their feet in the turf, and fought with trips, sweeps, and kicks in what contemporaries called, with admirable precision, ‘footsparring’. The ones who crossed the Irish Sea to test themselves against the wrestlers of Devon in London’s commercial sporting arenas in the 1820s, and who were met not with hostility but with the respect that one craftsman accords another.

This article is about the relationship between two wrestling traditions — Devonshire wrestling and Irish Collar-and-Elbow — that are, we believe, the closest structural relatives in the entire global family of jacket-based grappling arts. They share the same medium (a short, sturdy jacket), the same tactical philosophy (outplay: wrestling at arm’s length, with the legs as the primary weapons), the same fall conditions (a fair back fall to decide the bout), and the same hard-won reputation for producing, in the words of a nineteenth-century American commentator, wrestling that was ’eminently scientific and picturesque’ (Wikipedia, ‘Collar-and-elbow‘, 2025, citing contemporary sources).

They also share the same fate. Both were, by the early twentieth century, effectively extinct as competitive sporting traditions. And both are now — cautiously, stubbornly, and with great love — being brought back to life.

The Devonshire Wrestling Society has been training in Exeter since 2014, run by the Acutts. The founder Jamie Acutt, is the current Chief Instructor and Historian. For over 12 years, Jamie has been conducting patient work of reconstruction: connecting with the Cornish Wrestling Association, collating historical sources in an archive spanning 1000 years of content, codifying and writing material to share widely. In Plymouth, Richard Nunn is a certified instructor of the art at Devon Celtic Combat (Youtube | Instagram | Facebook), and teaches extensively across Devon and Cornwall.

The Irish Collar and Elbow Wrestling Federation (previously known as Irish Collar and Elbow Wrestling Association), led by the independent researcher and martial arts instructor Ruadhán MacFadden, has been conducting the same patient work of reconstruction: recovering techniques from historical sources, designing jackets, codifying rules, and building a community of practitioners (MacFadden, 2021; collarandelbow.ie, n.d.). In Chicago, Tom ‘The Headhunter’ Higgins (Instagram | Youtube) has established Collar-and-Elbow training through the Wrestling Wars competitive league, holding seminars and demonstrations at gyms and Irish cultural centres since 2022 (Wikipedia, ‘Collar-and-elbow‘, 2025). And in Dublin, Nathan ‘The Rambling Kern’ Featherstone (Patreon | Youtube | Instagram) teaches traditional Irish martial arts, including Collar-and-Elbow at the Kern School of Combat.

We are two small movements, working on the same problem, from opposite sides of the same sea.

II. What they share: The Outplay method

The structural kinship between Devonshire wrestling and Irish Collar-and-Elbow is not a matter of speculation. It is documented in the earliest systematic classification of English wrestling styles, published in 1727 by Sir Thomas Parkyns, the Nottinghamshire baronet and wrestling enthusiast.

Parkyns drew a fundamental distinction between ‘in-play’ — close-quarter grappling characterised by hugging and heaving, of which Cornish wrestling was the foremost example — and ‘out-play’ — wrestling at arm’s length, with a greater emphasis on leg techniques: kicks, trips, sweeps, and locks. Both systems used a jacket. But where the in-player sought to close the distance and throw by means of shoulder and arm techniques, the out-player kept his opponent at range and fought primarily with his feet (Parkyns, 1727, pp. 10–11).

Devonshire wrestling was firmly categorised as outplay. And Irish Collar-and-Elbow, though Parkyns did not describe it by name, fits squarely within the same classification. ‘Collar-and-Elbow’ was a ruleset, and a common name used for this shared identity. The term “Collar-and-Elbow” or “Elbow-and-Collar” Wrestling was not exclusively used as a name for Irish Wrestling but was also known across the British Isles, where it was practised in at least three other places: “Devonshire Wrestling”, “Berkshire Wrestling”, and “Norfolk Wrestling”. ‘Collectively, they are known as the British Outplay styles of Wrestling, which were defined by standing outside of range and used kicking and tripping’ (Wikipedia, ‘Collar-and-elbow‘, 2025).

This is not a loose analogy. The two traditions share a specific and detailed set of technical characteristics that distinguish them from every other form of wrestling in the British Isles.

Both use a jacket as the primary gripping medium. In Devon, this was a short canvas garment, open at the front, tied with strings or ropes, reaching to the hips, with loose sleeves to facilitate holds at the elbow and wrist (Walker, 1840, p. 25). In Ireland, the modern revival has adopted a purpose-made jacket with reinforced collar and sleeves, designed to emphasise the characteristic collar-and-elbow grip (collarandelbow.ie, n.d.). The jackets are not identical (although we are looking to use the same supplier), but they serve the same biomechanical function: they provide the grip architecture through which throws, trips, and sweeps are executed.

Both are standing-throw-only systems. There is no ground phase. The contest is decided by the quality of the throw — specifically, by whether it produces a fair back fall. In Devon, this was traditionally defined as a three-point fall: both shoulders and one hip, or both hips and one shoulder, touching the ground simultaneously. In Ireland, the definition varied by county: in Dublin, the same three-point fall was required; in Kildare, any body part above the knees touching the ground was sufficient (Wikipedia, ‘Collar-and-elbow‘, 2025; MacFadden, 2021).

Both rely primarily on leg techniques. The Devonshire style was known as ‘the kicking and tripping’; the Irish style was known for its ‘footsparring’. Both permitted kicks to the lower legs, trips, sweeps, hooks, and locks. Both demanded extraordinary footwork, timing, and the ability to exploit the momentary vulnerability created when an opponent raised a leg to attack — a principle that Parkyns identified in 1727 and that our Westcountry Wrestling Textbook calls the ‘loose-leg’ principle (DWS, 2024, pp. 242–243; Parkyns, 1727, pp. 30–32).

And both, crucially, were traditions in which shin-kicking was a recognised and routine feature of competitive play. The Wikipedia article on Collar-and-Elbow records 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’ (Wikipedia, ‘Collar-and-elbow‘, 2025). Any Devonshire wrestler reading that description will recognise it instantly. It is the same world.

Table 1: Heaves (Lifing throws)

Table 2: Crooks (Hook and leg) techniques

Table 3: Sprags

Table 4: Trips, Steps, and foot techniques

III. What divides them: Fixed-Hold and Loose-Hold

The principal structural difference between the two traditions lies in the grip rule — and it is a difference that has profound tactical consequences.

Devonshire wrestling operated under a loose-hold system. The wrestler commenced with one hand to the collar, but was thereafter permitted to release and re-grip anywhere on the jacket during the bout. He could shift from collar to sleeve, from sleeve to waist, from waist to the front ropes, probing constantly for the grip position that would enable his preferred throw. This freedom of grip-change created a dynamic, flowing contest in which the battle for grip superiority — what Judo calls kumi-kata — was itself a major tactical dimension. The Westcountry Wrestling Textbook documents four principal hitches (the collar hold, the sleeve-and-collar, the single sleeve, and the sleeve-and-waist) and notes that the range of possible grip combinations is functionally unlimited (DWS, 2024, pp. 114–118).

Irish Collar-and-Elbow, by contrast, enforced a fixed-hold system. The right hand grasped the opponent’s collar; the left grasped the sleeve at the elbow. This grip was maintained throughout the standing phase of the bout. There was no release, no shifting, no grip-fighting in the Judo sense. As the Irish Collar and Elbow Wrestling Federation has observed, it was precisely this constraint that drove the development of Collar-and-Elbow’s renowned arsenal of leg attacks: ‘when you cannot change your grips, you must become extraordinarily inventive with your feet’ (collarandelbow.ie, n.d.; MacFadden, 2021).

This is a difference worth understanding, because it is not merely a rule variation. It produces two genuinely different fighting problems — and therefore two different kinds of wrestler.

The Devonshire man, with his freedom to shift grips, must be a reader of hands as well as feet. He must control the jacket to control the posture, and control the posture to create the angle for his lock or trip. His game is one of manipulation: pulling, pushing, twisting the jacket to off-balance the opponent and open the line of attack. The closest modern analogue is the Judo player in randori, constantly probing and adjusting.

The Irish man, with his fixed grip, must be a master of angles, timing, and explosive leg attacks launched from a static upper-body frame. He cannot adjust his hands to create openings; he must create them entirely with his feet, his weight shifts, and his understanding of the opponent’s balance. The closest modern analogue may be certain forms of Sumo: a fixed frame, a battle of leverage and footwork within that frame.

Both are outplay. Both are leg-centric. Both demand extraordinary skill. But they reward different kinds of intelligence — and a match between them, conducted under agreed composite rules, would be one of the most fascinating technical encounters in the history of folk wrestling.

We know this because it happened. Repeatedly. In the 18th and 19th centuries.

IV. When they met

The evidence for direct competition between Irish and Devonshire wrestlers comes from a remarkable body of primary source material preserved in the newspaper archives of the period. The Exeter Flying Post, the Morning Chronicle, the Sherborne Mercury, and Bell’s Life in London all documented, in vivid and often blow-by-blow detail, the encounters between Irish and Devon wrestlers in London’s commercial sporting arenas between 1827 and 1829.

London served as the natural meeting point. The capital’s Irish immigrant population — swelled by the waves of economic migration that preceded the Great Famine — supplied both wrestlers and spectators. The Devon wrestling community in London was centred on the Eagle Tavern, City Road, which hosted annual Devonshire Wrestling tournaments from at least 1826, and the Golden Eagle, Mile-end-road, which served as the site of major challenge matches. The Irish supporters, whom the newspapers invariably described as ‘the Hibernians’ or ‘the Emeralders’, attended in force, backed their men freely, and — when their men lost, which was frequently — ‘retired highly chagrined at the result of the match, many of them considerably minus in pocket’ (Morning Chronicle, 20 May 1828).

The principal Irish wrestlers documented in the archives are as follows.

1. Gaffney — described variously as ‘the champion of Ireland’ and ‘the best Irishman’ in London — was the most prominent. He fought major challenge matches against both James Copp and Abraham Cann, the two foremost Devon wrestlers of the period (Exeter Flying Post, 7 June 1827; 4 October 1827).
2. Allen — who defeated Gaffney and was subsequently acknowledged as ‘the best Irishman in this country, having thrown Gaffney’ — fought Abraham Cann himself in the double play at the Eagle Tavern in 1828. The encounter, vividly reported in the Exeter Flying Post (29 May 1828), describes the two men taking ‘fair hand to collar’, with Allen showing ‘play’ and Cann giving ‘the compliments of the season’ in ‘cutting and Devonian-like manner, which the Hibernian’s [kicks] returned in much less impressive style’. The bout ended when Cann ‘threw [him] an oar with a tremendous splash over the bow, near the breech, and locking at the same moment, this capital Hibernian was laid as flat on his back [as] a pancake could exhibit itself Shrove Tuesday’.
3. Laurence Hanlon — a formidable man of ‘nearly 14 stone weight’ — was matched against Copp for £20 a side at the Eagle Tavern in May 1828. Despite the significant weight advantage, ‘Hanlon was the stronger man, but his opponent, it was evident, was not far behind him in strength, and far superior in science’. Copp won decisively, and the Irish supporters ‘retired highly chagrined’ (Morning Chronicle, 20 May 1828).
4. Finney (or Finnon) — described as ‘a tall, athletic Irishman’ — distinguished himself at the Fourth Annual Devon Wrestling in April 1829, becoming one of the standards (qualified competitors). Remarkably, at the Leeds Grand Match in Easter 1828, Finney ‘accidentally, but fairly, threw Abraham Cann’ — one of the very few documented occasions on which any wrestler put Cann on his back (Exeter Flying Post, 30 October 1828; Sherborne Mercury, 27 April 1829).
5. Larkins — whose forty-minute bout with Easton at the Eagle Tavern in 1828 was one of the longest recorded encounters of the period — was noted for an incident in which he ‘unfairly laid hold of the flesh instead of the canvass’, prompting a warning from the umpires. The distinction between jacket hold and body hold was, evidently, a matter of strict enforcement even in mixed-style encounters (Exeter Flying Post, 29 May 1828).

These men competed under composite rules — typically ‘hand to collar’ grips with ‘side and back falls’ to decide the match, and the wearing of light shoes or padding. The Irish wrestlers adapted to the Devon ruleset rather than imposing their own Collar-and-Elbow conventions. This is not surprising: Irish Collar-and-Elbow was itself a leg-centric outplay style, and the transition to Devon-style rules — which similarly emphasised trips, sweeps, and kicks — would not have been technically alien to an experienced Irish wrestler.

What was alien was the severity of Devon shin-kicking. The celebrated encounter between Abraham Cann and Gaffney at the Golden Eagle on Monday, 1 October 1827, provides the most vivid testimony. The Exeter Flying Post (4 October 1827) reported that ‘Gaffney kicked very much at the shins of Cann, but they exhibited no signs of punishment, though the sound resounded through the ring; whilst, after Cann had inflicted a few retorts upon the shins of Gaffney, his worsted stockings were sopped with blood, and his laced shoe of the left foot seemed saturated like that of a slaughterer from the shambles.’ Cann won in two fair back falls plus a third bout in which Gaffney’s left shoulder was dislocated.

Yet the tone of these encounters, throughout the archive material, is one of mutual respect rather than enmity. ‘Both the men shook hands in the most friendly manner,’ the Morning Chronicle recorded of Copp and Hanlon’s encounter (20 May 1828). Gaffney, despite his defeats, was consistently described as a man of ability and courage. Finney’s accidental throw of Cann at Leeds was recorded without rancour — indeed, with a kind of wonder that anyone had managed it at all. And when the Irish wrestlers lost, the Devon reporters gave credit generously: Allen was ‘a capital Hibernian’; Hanlon was ‘the stronger man’; Finney was one who had ‘proved himself a troublesome customer to scientific professors’ (Exeter Flying Post, 29 May 1828; 30 October 1828).

These were not enemies. They were fellow practitioners of the outplay art, meeting in the ring with the same respect that a Judo player from Tokyo might accord a Judo player from Paris. They spoke the same technical language. They recognised the same skills. They shook hands before and after.

V. The shared tragedy: extinction

Both traditions were, within a century of these London encounters, effectively dead as competitive sporting cultures.

In Ireland, Collar-and-Elbow’s decline was bound up with the broader cultural disruptions of the nineteenth century: the catastrophe of the Great Famine, the displacement of traditional rural life, the rise of organised sport under the Gaelic Athletic Association (which promoted hurling and Gaelic football but did not include Collar-and-Elbow in its programme), and the ironic omission of the national wrestling style from the short-lived modern revival of the Tailteann Games in the 1920s. A book published in 1908 by An Chomhairle Náisiúnta lamented that although wrestling had been ‘on the Gaelic programme since its first appearance, neither has ever received any official encouragement. Yet both are games in which Gaels have excelled’ (Wikipedia, ‘Collar-and-elbow‘, 2025). In the United States, where Collar-and-Elbow had been exported via Irish emigration and military service, the final contest for the championship of America took place in 1878 (Wikipedia, ‘Collar-and-elbow‘, 2025). By 1890, it was already being called ‘an old time sport’.

In Devon, the trajectory was remarkably similar. The great era of competitive wrestling — the 1820s and 1830s, the decade of Cann, Stone, Copp, and Wreford — gave way to a long decline driven by rural depopulation, the professionalisation of sport, the reform movement that sought to eliminate shin-kicking, and the sheer difficulty of sustaining a folk tradition in a rapidly industrialising society. John Stone of the Plymouth Inn at Crediton, who was credited in 1926 as ‘one of the first to cut out of the Devonshire game that inhuman kicking business which often maimed opponents’, may have saved lives but also removed the feature that most distinguished the Devon style from its Cornish neighbour (Western Morning News, 19 August 1926). By the early twentieth century, Devonshire wrestling had been largely absorbed into the Cornish tradition, and was ‘generally considered to be extinct’ (Wikipedia, ‘Folk wrestling‘, 2025).

Two outplay traditions. Two parallel declines. Two losses that left the broader heritage of British and Irish martial arts substantially poorer.

VI. The shared revival

And now, two parallel revivals.

The Devonshire Wrestling Society was founded in 2014 in Exeter by a group of practitioners who set out to reconstruct the Devon style from historical sources — principally Parkyns (1727), Walker (1840), and the extensive newspaper archive of nineteenth-century match reports. The result, after a decade of research and practice, is the Westcountry Wrestling Textbook (2024): a comprehensive manual documenting 17 techniques in six categories (crooks, hips, heaves, trips, throws, and sprags), four principal hitches, ten strategic principles, and the complete ruleset for modern competitive play (DWS, 2024).

The Irish Collar and Elbow Wrestling Federation has been conducting the same patient work from the Irish side. MacFadden’s book — Collar and Elbow: The Lost Fighting Art of Ireland (2021), published by Fallen Rook Publishing — represents the most comprehensive modern scholarship on the Irish tradition: its history, its staggering popularity, its strategies and techniques, and the causes behind its disappearance. MacFadden, who is a member of the special advisory group of UNESCO ICM representing traditional Irish wrestling, has also designed a purpose-made green competition jacket, codified a modern ruleset, and established a network of clubs and practitioners (collarandelbow.ie, n.d.; MacFadden, 2021). In Chicago, the Collar-and-Elbow presence has been established by Tom Higgins, through Wrestling Wars, bringing the tradition to gyms and Irish cultural centres in the American Midwest (Wikipedia, ‘Collar-and-elbow‘, 2025). And in Ireland by Nathan Featherstone, at The Rambling Kern. These 3 gentlemen warriors are friends and supporters of our Devonshire Wrestling revival too.

To date, the two revivals have proceeded largely independently. This is natural: each has had more than enough work to do in its own tradition without looking across the water. But the structural parallels are striking. Both have reconstructed technique from historical written sources. Both have designed modern jackets that are historically grounded but fit for contemporary training. Both have codified rulesets that balance historical authenticity with modern safety. Both face the same challenge of building a community of practitioners for a tradition that has no living chain of transmission.

VII. An invitation

We do not presume to speak for the Irish Collar and Elbow Wrestling Federation, and we do not propose to flatten the real differences between our traditions into a false unity. The fixed-hold rule and the loose-hold rule produce genuinely different wrestling. The cultures that gave rise to these traditions are distinct. The histories are different.

But the evidence of the archive is clear. When Irish and Devon wrestlers met in the 19th century, they recognised each other. They fought hard, they shook hands, and they came back to fight again. Gaffney challenged Cann. Allen challenged Cann. Finney threw Cann. The betting was fierce. The Emeralders backed their men freely. The Devon men backed theirs. And when it was over, they met at the Eagle Tavern, and the proprietor announced the next match.

What if that happened today?

Irish Collar-and-Elbow is, by all accounts, gathering remarkable momentum. The social media presence is growing. The book is in print and well-reviewed. Clubs are forming. The spirit is there. From the Devon side, we watch this with great admiration — and with the recognition that our own tradition’s best days may lie not in isolation but in partnership.

Irish, North country and Westcountry Collar-and-elbow have always been interlinked, as an article from the local papers in Exeter from 1864 recorded:

“”When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war!“

The Patlanders … nothing wanting to have a finger in the pie of public approbation, have always been ready to sport a toe, give a kick, or obtain a back fall, with either Devonshire or Cornish men, when any match has been offered to them. Gaffney, Finney, &c., have proved themselves, on several occasions, very troublesome customers, and who have withstood many a severe kick on the shins, when the claret has been seen trickling down their legs, reminding us very strongly of the philosopher’s assertion, that pain is only an imaginary feeling; in truth, the above wrestlers have stood their ground like bricks and mortar. But we hate all incidious distinctions, country or colour are all the same to us; and we only direct our reports of these contests, to the talent and strength exhibited in the various matches.

All the men are alike to us in the above respect; and ability of any kind never was, nor ever will be, confined to any particular spot. But in the London ring, a man is sure to meet with his match; and he whoever he may be who gets at the top of the tree in the metropolis he must prove himself—somebody. Our forefathers cherished the pastime as the surest means of keeping alive, in times of peace, that martial spirit, and that robust frame of body, which has hitherto opposed such an insuperable barrier to the gigantic efforts of the enemies of Great Britain. A century ago wrestling games were in the highest repute; but the many restrictions imposed on the diversions of the lower classes of society caused their decay in all parts of the empire, except in some of the northern and western counties of England and a few places in Ireland.

We hail, therefore, the revival of them with pleasure, as we consider them a desirable source of recreation for the peasantry, being devoid of anything brutal or disgusting, and hope to see them patronized to the extent they merit. Indeed, wrestling has now become very popular amongst the admirers of athletic sports in the metropolis.”

Only the Irish were hungry to compete with the ‘Sons of Devon’ and prevailed. So today, it’s great to see collar-and-elbow in this way, “country or colour are all the same to us; and we only direct our reports of these contests, to the talent and strength exhibited in the various matches. All the men are alike to us in the above respect; and ability of any kind never was, nor ever will be, confined to any particular spot.”

On this St Patrick’s Day, then, we extend a hand across the water. Not to the collar, and not to the elbow — but in friendship.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit.

References

Devonshire Wrestling Society [DWS]. (2024). Westcountry Wrestling: A Comprehensive Guide. Exeter: DWS.

Exeter and Plymouth Gazette. (16 June 1827). Devon wrestling in London.

Exeter Flying Post. (7 June 1827). Copp and Gaffney; Devon and Cornish wrestling in London.

Exeter Flying Post. (4 October 1827). Wrestling match between Cann and Gaffney at the Golden Eagle.

Exeter Flying Post. (29 May 1828). Copp and Hanlon; wrestling at the Eagle Tavern.

Exeter Flying Post. (30 October 1828). Olver and Finney; Finney throws Abraham Cann at Leeds.

Irish Collar and Elbow Wrestling Federation. (n.d.). About Collar and Elbow. Retrieved March 2026, from https://collarandelbow.ie

MacFadden, R. (2021). Collar and Elbow: The lost fighting art of Ireland. Fallen Rook Publishing.

Morning Chronicle. (20 May 1828). Wrestling: Copp and Hanlon at the Eagle Tavern.

Parkyns, Sir T. (1727). Progymnasmata: The inn-play; or, Cornish-hugg wrestler. London.

Sherborne Mercury. (27 April 1829). Fourth Annual Devonshire Wrestling at the Eagle Tavern.

Walker, D. (1840). Defensive exercises; comprising wrestling, as in Cumberland, Westmoreland, Cornwall and Devonshire. London: Thomas Hurst.

Western Morning News. (19 August 1926). Devon’s wrestling champion: Reminiscences of Abraham Cann.

Wikipedia. (2025). Collar-and-elbow. Retrieved March 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collar-and-elbow

Wikipedia. (2025). Folk wrestling. Retrieved March 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_wrestling

Further Reading

MacFadden, R. (2021). Collar and Elbow: The lost fighting art of Ireland. Fallen Rook Publishing. Available from https://www.fallenrookpublishing.co.uk/books/irish-collar-and-elbow-wrestling/

Irish Collar and Elbow Wrestling Federation — https://collarandelbow.ie

Irish Collar and Elbow on Instagram — @irishcollarandelbow

Health and Fitness History. (n.d.). Irish Coraíocht (Collar and Elbow). https://healthandfitnesshistory.com/ancient-sports/irish-coraiocht-collar-elbow/

An Claíomh Solais. (n.d.). Collar and Elbow Wrestling. https://anclaiomhsolais.com/collar-and-elbow-wrestling