Historic irish/ celtic

Ireland was under British rule for many centuries, and just like in Scotland, many traditional customs and crafts, as well as weapons, were outlawed. It's probable that a lot of the knowledge of forging and using traditional weapons was lost along the way.
 
Triton said:
As has been mentioned many cultures contributed to Ireland, most notably the Celts and the Norse. The only weapon that I'm aware of that is uniquely Irish unless you want to count the shillelagh are ring pommeled swords as in the illustration above.

Through much of their history the Irish were considered a bit backward, even primitive, unique weapons were not their thing.
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The Irish being considered “backward and primitive” is only because history is written by conquering oppressors. That primitive backward people gave the English the boot 😀
 
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jstrange said:
Google Irish Skean. There will be some info, and ones for sale, but I have no idea about the quality.
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Scian (or skean, or skene, or sgian depending on where you are) is a Gaelic word that means knife. It doesn't really pertain to any specific design other than what was used at the time. It could refer to most anything, just as the word dagger does in English.
 
brownshoe said:
The Irish being considered “backward and primitive” is only because history is written by conquering oppressors. That primitive backward people gave the English the boot 😀
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Oh you are not drawing me in to that whole argument! I think that technologically the Irish might have been a bit behind but as you say the observations were made by people that weren't exactly fans of the Irish for sure.
 
The Irish had a tradition sword pattern distinguished by a ringed pommel. The scian or skean is a tradition multi use long knife or dagger of the Middle Ages. You may be interested in researching Irish mercenaries referred to as the Gallowglass. Perhaps you may learn what they carried.
 
The gallowglass were from the western coast of Scotland, principally Argyll and the Western Isles although some could be found in the Norse settlements in Ulster as well. Their weapons were swords and axes. Each was usually accompanied by a man to see to his weapons and armour and a boy to carry provisions. The kinship between the Irish and the Gaels of western Scotland allowed the Gallowglass to integrate easily into Gaelic Ireland and they were ideal mercenaries as they shared a language and culture with the Irish without being involved in the local politics.

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallowglass
 
dirc said:
^^ exactly... the brits also outlawed the oak staff.... pretty good indication of how desperate they were militarily
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Well I mean they did take the place over... If you want to keep people subjugated disarm them its a time honored truism.
 
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