By Michael Blackett
At a time when Ireland was going through massive political changes with the Act of Union being passed in 1798 one man became a national hero for his patriotism shown at a time when pride in the country was desperately needed.
Dan Donnelly would become this figure and tales of his Bareknuckle fights against the British fighters would become folklore. Sir Dan, as he was often called due to the reported story of being knighted by the Prince Regent was born in 1788 in Dublin.
DAN DONNELLY
He endured a life of poverty as a child as many families did during these hard times. This was partly due to his father not being able to work as a carpenter which he was trained in. As soon as Dan was old enough, he too became a carpenter and became self-dependant.
Fighters throughout time make their mark in the history books for many reasons and considering Dan only ever had 3 official Bareknuckle fights, his story of how he achieved such fame and notoriety is even more interesting.
Dan stood a little over 6 feet and weighed 196 pounds and like many great fighters believed in not looking for trouble and tried to avoid fighting at all costs but when the need arose he was unrelenting. He gained a reputation in Dublin as a man not to mess with and when a rival boxer became jealous of his rising fame a fight was arranged. As usual, Dan tried his best to avoid the fight happening but it was eventually arranged for on the banks of the Great Canal. After 16 rounds of fighting Dan was declared the winner and with it, the unofficial title of champion of the city.
Fate played its part in Dan’s next fight when he was tracked down by the Irish aristocrat Captain William Kelly. While in England Kelly had overheard a conversation slating Irish fighters and wanted revenge for the slur to his countrymen. Dan Donnelly became the man responsible to defend the Irish honor and with it a chance to compete on a much bigger scale than previous.
On September the 14th , 1814 at the Curragh in County Kildare Dan faced Tom Hall an English fighter, the fight would take place in an area known as Belchers Hollow. With a sloped embankment it allowed 20,000 spectators looking down watching the men do battle, while they fought in a makeshift ring.
A picture taken from a pageant in 1953 at the site of the Hollow.
With very little rules in force, it was a real toughmans type of fighting, once a man was down a round was over and he had 30 seconds to come up to scratch. Being the much stronger man Dan eventually wore down his opponent but not before Hall used every trick in the book, to get rest bites during the fight. After a little controversy and Hall refusing to continue Dan was declared the winner. This was celebrated by all of Ireland as during this time there had been very little cheer about and it made it all so sweeter with the Englishman being defeated. National pride was restored to a certain extent and the hollow was named Donnelly’s hollow in recognition of his great victory.
His next fight was 15 months later on December 13th, 1815 at the same Hollow. This time is was against another English fighter named George Cooper, who was from Gypsy heritage, he was touring Ireland at the time giving lessons to the wealthy and competing in exhibitions. Cooper was a massive favorite and the English felt they had the right fighter to crush Donnelly and to restore the pride back to the English. Once again around 20,000 people spectated and once again the natural strength of Donnelly prevailed. It was a too and fro fight from the beginning but as it continued Cooper grew tired and by the 11th round the fight was over when Donnelly landed a huge right hand and broke Cooper’s jaw, in total the fight lasted 22 minutes.
Spectators were so overjoyed at yet another victory against the English that they followed Donnelly away from the hollow and dug out footprint where he walked to mark the occasion and for this great feat never to be forgotten. It was nearly 4 years later that he had his third and final big fight. He travelled to England to fight Tom Oliver in Sussex and as a final smack in the face to the English, he won in 34 rounds lasting 1 hour and 10 minutes and made sure that even though he had very few fights, what he achieved was restoring pride to the Irish when it had little to be proud of as such.
He never returned to the ring and decided he’d do what lots of fighters before him did and he decided to run a pub. He owned and ran a few but each one failed as he had turned to drinking quite heavily and he passed away in his last owned pub aptly named Donnelly Pub on the 18th of February, 1820 at the young age of 32. He was buried in one of Ireland’s oldest cemeteries but within a few days his body was dug up for perhaps medical science which happened frequently at that time. His body was tracked down to a local surgeon who agreed to give the body back as long as he could keep his right arm, this was agreed upon and the body was returned.
The arm was at first used for medical research in Scotland and then it was acquired by many people and in different locations including it being exhibited in a pub in Ireland owned by Jim Bryne for almost 43 years before the owner died and the pub was sold. It was exhibited in America before its return the Ireland in 2009. It returned home to Dublin in 2010 when an exhibition appeared at the Gaelic Athletic Association Museum. By all accounts the arm is in the possession of the late Jim Bryne’s sister in law Josephine.
A photo of Donnelly’s arm when it was exhibited in America.
*If anyone is interested in reading more on the origins of bare knuckle boxing, here is a link to Michael Blackett’s site- THE HISTORY OF BAREKNUCKLE BOXING
