shillelah

The Maluku shield, it should be observed, is remarkably narrow, and is brandished somewhat in the same way as the single stick-player uses his stick, or the Irishman his shillelah, that is to say, it is held nearly in the center, and whirled every way round.

The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido For the Suppression of Piracy Henry Keppel

Malone walked round it somewhere in its great sooty flank he found another chink of light; he knocked at another door, using for the purpose the thick end of his shillelah, with which he beat a rousing tattoo.

Shirley, by Charlotte Bronte 2004

He stood with his hat on the back of his head, and his shillelah grasped in his dexter fist answering much at random the questions of the newly-arrived party from the Redhouse.

Shirley, by Charlotte Bronte 2004

On making up his mind as to the object of his choice, he proceeds by night to the camping-ground of the _fair_ one's tribe; searches her out among the sleeping beauties; deals her a blow on the head with his club, (to which an Irishman's shillelah is a twig,) and carries off the stunned and senseless wretch to his own camp.

Trade and Travel in the Far East or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, Singapore, Australia and China. G. F. Davidson

It was fashionable about that time not to walk forth without a nice little Irish shillelah under one's arm, with which a head could be made to sing unmercifully, in case of necessity.

The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat or, the Secret of Cedar Island George A. Warren

It deals around little doses of shillelah, just by way of experiment; and if the unlucky head does not happen to be that of an enemy, make it one; so it's all right again.

The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 Devoted to Literature and National Policy Various

They gave American, indeed, relatively few new words; perhaps shillelah, colleen, spalpeen, smithereens and poteen exhaust the unmistakably Gaelic list.

Chapter 3. The Period of Growth. 4. Loan-Words and Non-English Influences Henry Louis 1921

The latter, hearing some noises which he thought he ought not to have heard, rushed in upon the lovers and made such a display of his sprig of a shillelah that Mr. Bourbonnais incontinently found his way not only out of the house but also out of the fort, with Mr. McKenzie after him.

Forty years a fur trader on the upper Missouri: the personal narrative of Charles Larpenteur, 1833-1872 1898

Is it evident that the political artist has studied the old masters, if he exhibits his genius by tapping an opponent's head with a shillelah?

Life of Hon. Phineas T. Barnum 1891

Divine mercy on the doomed one; Mrs. Turner flushed, and looked wonderingly from one to the other; Mrs. Wilkins dropped her parasol and picked it up pretty much as though it were a shillelah and she meant to use it as such, and then the group began to break up.

Marion's Faith. Charles King 1888