The Top Shillelagh

In the days before river dance and The Lord of the dance, their was an underground Irish dance competition called the Top shillelagh. Founded in the 1500s in county Longford , it was a brutal Irish dance competition that helped settle disputes between warring clans and helped train young men for battle.
During the famine it had come over and became a huge part of Irish American culture. It was even reported that Rose Kennedy had won many a violent competition as a young girl in Boston in the early 1900s. Of course it's now all gone . But if you go into any Irish pub in the northeast their will always be some old timer who will tell the story of the greatest   Top shillelagh battle  that took place in 1962.
It was two years into JFK's term as president and to be Irish in America had become a blessing as opposed to a curse. Everyone wanted to be Irish, even Nat King Cole. Things where wonderful, but for the Top shillelagh things had gotten tough. Young lads where not in love with the competition anymore. They wanted to box or play baseball. It wasn't considered cool to Irish step dance violently. That is until Bags McCkinnon came along . He was a big fella standing 6-5 and had fists like tree trunks. He was from a shack near the steel yards of Pittsburgh and spoke in a tough way that would scare an army of marines. He could drink a keg of Guinness and not be buzzed and he could carry two bulls on his back like he was carrying a new born babe. Everyone had wanted to recruit him for the tough manly sports. The Rooney family even offered him money to play linebacker for the steelers, but he said no. Bags had come from a long line of men who had been part of the Top shillelagh and he knew that's where he belonged.  He burst on the scene like a Greek god coming down from mount Olympus. He could destroy men in moments with his sidesteps and step ball changes. The way he danced was in such a brutal manly way, that he would regularly throw his opponents  into commas. As sportswriter Fitz O' McShamus had said" it was like the man stepped out of a mythic time to show all of us in our fancy suits how it was done"
In a month he had destroyed the competition in Pittsburgh and barn stormed all over the country blowing apart rivals in St Louis, Cleveland , Cincinnati.In Chicago boss Daley called for a special holiday so all the cops could see the competition . He was a phenom and finally when he hit New York City, it was like Jesus coming to Jerusalem. Bags Mckinonon was the toast of every Irish American in the city. Every boy wanted to be him, the ladies loved him and the cardinal tried to push to make him a saint. He was an unstoppable force. So unstoppable that he had destroyed the competition .
The promoters had brought over Barry Cooney  the Irish champ who was touted as the best in the world. But Bags destroyed him in 2 minutes and left the man with so many cuts and bruises on his face he was known as zipper face Cooney until his scares healed.

But one day their started being rumblings from out west of a challenger who was gaining a Paul bunyon type of reputation. His name was Thomas Regan his story was on the same mythic level of Bags. Thomas had been the youngest of 22 children.He had run away from Belfast at the age of 4 due to his mother who would beat him with a hot metal rod. He had stowed away on a boat and than made his way to the cascade mountains of Washington state where his father Big Thomas Regan a mean bastard who stood 4-11 lived. It was said that Big Thomas packed such a wallop, he had during a fight punched a man so hard the impact had helped create the Columbia gorge.Big Thomas made his living  working in the logging camps.
 When his young son had arrived he had said to him" ah lad, you got to be tough in life to survive but you got also be sensitive like a rooster with the hens". Young Thomas was a little confused but he listens to his father who was almost 77.
He brought young Thomas into the logging camps gave the boy an axe and set him to work. At night he taught him a style of the top shillelagh that had been banned in some parts of Ireland for its excessive brutality. His father fed him tree bark every morning and feed him cheese that was extra sharp from being put into manure all day. In time lil Thomas Regan grew bigger and stronger than his father. At the age of 17 he stood 5-2 and weighed a whooping 130 lbs of pure muscle. By than his father had run away with the circus and had gone to China where last was heard he was married and had 28 children before dying at the ripe old age of 146.
Young Thomas made his way up to Alaska working on fishing boats and in logging camps performing feats of strength like wrestling killer whales for fun and bedding 10 women at once. His best friend was a giant polar bear named Boregard and he took on any man in the top shillelagh and destroyed them.
In time,he had made his way back down from Alaska cause no man wanted to go against him. He destroyed the competition in Vancouver and Seattle. In Portland he had left one man in a coma for 6 years. When he got to old San Francisco he competed against the entire SFPD at that time the most violent police force around. Over a 18 hour period he destroyed the entire police force in an epic Top shillelagh battle that some considered the greatest of all time.  That battle had drawn the attention of the sports writers back east and so a battle was negotiated between Bags manager Tiffy O' Rourke and Thomas manager Boeregard the polar bear.
The battle would commence  on September 21st 1962 in the coffee hall of St Sebastian the martyr church in Manhattan s Hell's Kitchen at 8pm. They had flown in the great Top shillelagh champion Rusty McCoonan all the way from his dirt farm in County Louth to be the judge. Top celebrities where going to be there. Famed Irish actors Allen Jenkins and Frank Mchugh would be in attendance , Samuel Beckett who had been quite the shillelagh dancer as a boy was coming from France, Rose Kennedy even was going to make an appearance . It was the dance battles to end all dance battles.

The two men walked onto the stage in the smoke filled room . The smell of whiskey, perfume ,cigars and Guinness dominated the room. Bags and Thomas where in the traditional dancing clothes. A pare of work pants and work boots and no shirt.  They came to each other and where noes to noes, they shock hands and with the firing of a starter pistol the battle began. The music started up in that high tempo traditional way .
Bags started out with his signature move the Inisfree two step a move that had destroyed many a man before. But Thomas just smiled  and countered with the Kerry ball change.Bags looked at him and just smiled back. The whole crowd was in silence, everyone knew this was going to be the greatest Top shillelagh  battle ever witnessed by anyone. 
The two men danced around each other in double time and triple time and even at one moment quadrupole time. This wasn't a dance battle but a battle of two gods. After 20 minutes neither one was going to let up. Bags  started to bleed profusely from a cut above his left eye that was as if the Hoover damn had exploded . Meanwhile one move from Bags had left Thomas nose looking nothing more than a bloody blotch on his face . It was pure brutality at its finest . After an hour neither man was going to let up. After three hours men where fainting from the sight of so much blood.Some people where calling for Rusty to stop the fight, but both Bags and Thomas gave him a look that if he stopped the fight they would kill him right there . 4 hours passed and still nothing. It was if both men where getting stronger from the battle. Almost like demons had possessed  them. The crowd was going wild for this was the greatest battle anyone had ever seen.
At hour 8 Thomas said to bags" you getting bored of this crowd cause I certainly am" bags nodded" lets make this interesting you lil runt"
Both men jumped off the stage and continued to dance through the crowd and out of the coffee hall and into the street.
Cars stopped and the police blocked off the street as both men continued dancing savagely  through Hell's Kitchen . People ran towards the action.
The two warriors started dancing north of Hell's Kitchen , through the theater district where a young Stephen Sondheim saw the battle and was so inspired by the action he saw he went home and wrote the musical Company  that night and forever after said" my music will never be as beautiful as the brutal dancing those two men showed the world"
When local tough writer Norman Mailer tried to get in on the action calling the men a pair of pansies both men turned and gave him the most ferocious Draghada double kick , Mailer went flying 50 feet and crashed through the window of a bar where he had run out on a tab 2 years before and was promptly attacked by a pack of wolves the owner had been serving.
The men danced up to Harlem where the Nicholas Brothers had been dancing.After seeing this the Nicholas brothers promptly quit dancing.
The men  continued dancing,crossed the George Washington bridge into New Jersey through the Catskills across the Amish country of Pennsylvania where buggies burst into flames from the dances energy. Through the Appalachian mountains, into the farmland of Ohio. In Cleveland the dancing was so violent that the mighty Cayuga caught on fire again and would burn for the next 8 years.
The whole country was mesmerized by this battle. Gambling on this dance battle had been high but now it was going through the roof.
Some where calling on JFK to stop the battle, but he replied" once you get a top shelalie going it only ends when one person is knocked out or the other man quits".
By the time Bags and Thomas got to the mighty Mississippi their bodies where a bruised and bloody mess. Bags could only see out of one eye and was spitting up blood. Thomas meanwhile was breathing out of his ears due to his nose and jaw being mush.
As the two got to the Mississippi , the darnedest thing happened, the Mississippi parted so the two men could dance without impediment . It's as is if Mother Nature knew the power these men possessed and wasn't going to stop them.
The men danced through the corn fields of Iowa and started dancing north into Canada. The Canadian prime minister who had grown up in Toronto's Irish neighborhood knew of the Top shillelagh and wasn't going to stop the two men.
As they crossed the prairie provinces dancing, the strangest thing happened, a sudden blizzard appeared out of nowhere. None of the farmers had ever seen a storm like this. The blizzard had winds going 400 miles an hour and snow so thick you couldn't see an inch in front of you. The storm came barreling at Bags McCkinnon and Thomas Reagan at full speed. Neither  men was going to stop dancing now. The blizzard came and lifted the two men up into the air as they continued to still dance and took them off towards the north and never where seen from again.

All of the world was in shock. As quickly as it had started, the greatest Top shillelagh  had ended just like that. JFK took no calls or saw anyone for three days afterwards. Boss Daily cried openly for a week straight. After such an epic battle to have it end with no clear champion destroyed anyone's hopes of doing the Top shillelagh.
 What was the point? No one would ever match Bags McCkinnon and Thomas Regan . And so the Top shillelagh faded away. Boeregard the polar bear got married moved to Seattle and opened up a bar in Seattle's pioneer square before moving to Phoenix and going into the office supply business .  Tiffy O' Rourke  moved to an ashram in India where he lived out his days telling people stories of Bags McCkinnon and Thomas Regan .

Now it's said some nights of the year if you are in Canada and look towards the north you can see two giant shadows of men who look like Bags McCkinnon and Thomas Regan dancing the Top shillelagh. Its as if Bags and Thomas are meant to dance for all eternity.