Féile na Gaiscígh means “Gathering of Warriors”, and it’s the big event of the Irish HEMA calendar, running every July in Dublin. It’s organised by HEMA Ireland and Dublin HEMA Club at All Hallow’s College, a former seminary turned specialist university. The venue is therefore quite spectacular - although the main hall is a decent size for HEMA fighting!

Short review: Fantastic event - super friendly, improved level of competition from last year and great classes! Irish hospitality is amazing.



Read on for a full review!

The organisation was great - some minor hiccups with changing meal times were dealt with smoothly and everything scheduled to run ran. I showed up after the event’s start, so I chatted for the last hour of the first class, then enjoyed Gary Ó Nuallaín’s Meyer staff class. I’m not a massive fan of the kata as a concept in martial arts training, but by way of communicating the basic movements and transitions of the long staff it worked superbly.

I then learned that I’d registered for the Sword and Buckler tournament and then forgotten about it. Fortunately, folks were happy to lend me an arming sword and buckler, so I was able to compete.

The ruleset was comparatively simple - clean thrust to the torso or hit to the head was 4 points, cuts to the torso or limb hits were 3 points, and hit-afterblow was 2-1, regardless of targets or attack types. Doubles scored nothing, and fights were to 5 exchanges.

The interesting part was that the tournament was fought as a round robin, with placings determined by most points scored. Thus I managed to do surprisingly well - reach and a sense of distance and time are universally helpful even if my technical repetoire was limited with this weapon set. I was very happy to execute a schiltschlac once or twice though! I went undefeated, but I still recvieved Silver as Mike Prendegast had lost to me 4-5 but still amassed more points overall. The tournament was noteworthy for the amazingly high level of sportsmanship, with hits acknowledged all over the place. The first rule out the window seemed to be the limit on protests, as everyone wanted to tell the judges, opponent and world that they’d been hit. This was quite a theme for the weekend - competitive exchanges followed by a friendly correction of the judges if required.

After the tournament, I was happy to get some be-bucklered (it’s a word now!) sparring time in with Paul Reck, who had taught the I.33 class that I’d missed in the morning, and he showed me a lot of interesting details on control in the bind phase that allowed me to transition much better.

I’m not saying that the Irish can out-drink me, but on Saturday morning I found myself napping instead of taking a workshop in the first slot of the day…

The Belfast based Medieval Combat Group began the afternoon with a messer class. Abschneiden is neglected in HEMA - perhaps because it’s hard to score with or even use effectively with substantial protective kit on, or because messer as a whole is a rarity. Ross and Matt ran an excellent class, not just running us through the upper and lower slicings off, but also placing then in context with set-ups and then working through to sparring games. Really a stellar example of how to structure a focused workshop to impart effective skills - I noticed several great slices made in the Longsword Open tournament the next day.

I then judged the rapier tournament. Using two judges assigned to one fighter specifically seems to work fairly well, although there are fairness issues if one fighter has a “stronger” team of judges than the other. I also got to spar Marek from Galway’s Swords of the West group. Fast, powerful and cunning in his variations of attack. I wish he’d been able to stay another day to fight in the Longsword Open. He and Matt from Belfast were my two big “I want to fight him”s and neither were able to stay to Sunday.

In the meantime, Michela had galloped through the Women’s Longsword to defend her title from the last year.

Sunday saw a better start to the day courtesy of moderation and caution (despite Italy-Germany match!) and I began the day with Andy Damm’s pugilism class. He was teaching Mendoza, and I was interested to see the contrast between this earlier 1789 system and the 1889 Allanson-Winn Boxing that my Bartitsu group uses as it’s source. His workshop was a little more generalised than that, however, showing both the later upright “rapier and dagger” stance per Owen Swift/Allanson-Winn as well as Mendoza’s leaning double-blocked stance. His interpretations seemed sound, of course, it was just a little “blended 200+ years of evolution” for my rarefied tastes. I’d also like to see a citation for the teep and chasse laterale kicks in actual pugilism. Of course, they fit into Bartitsu practice excellently!

Then it was time to defend last year’s shiny in the Open Longsword. My pool with Michela’s comments was: Michael Nolan (”He’s biiiiiig!”), Johnny Vodka (”He cheered for Germany, kill him!”), Ben (”He only thrusts at you!”), Brian (That’s fast!”), George and Roland (”They’re going really hard, I can hear the breathing!”). Just like the other tournaments, there were a lot of acknowledged hits and good sportsmanship between some cracking exchanges. None of the matches felt like I was fencing at my A grade, but I got out of pools comfortably and more importantly I got used to what I could and couldn’t demand of my fractured foot. In particular, fighting Ben from France was a great example of tactical solutions - he had a great thrust-lunge and a good command of distance and timing, but I think I was the only fighter in the pool was was able to Krump effectively against him as he approached in Langort. Maybe I should run a class next year…

The quarter finals match against Adrian Shwapka, last year’s Bronze medallist, was the hardest of the tournament. He’s taller than me and very quick. I think it was ultimately only a slight edge in variety of attack and timings that let me take it.

I then had Ben again, and while he made better use of feints and disengagements, it was a comfortable win. Except for bending my new feder on his jacket.

The Bronze match was between Andrew from Cork Blademasters and Ben. It was a really great match to watch. So watch it!

Finally, the finals. My opponent was Keith Farrell, and while my balance and ability to advance were affected by my foot, I think I managed a good job of controlling the Zufechten and not getting stuck in the pocket with him: