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The Physical Gael

“Ní bhíonn an rath ach mar a mbíonn an smacht
There is no success without discipline”
Irish seanfhocail

1. The Legend Within
2. Seanbhia, Food of our Forebears
3. Seanbhia, the Basic Principles
4. Seanbhia, a Practical Example
5. Dairy
6. Exercise

From time immemorial the physical prowess of the Irish people has been a source of wonder and astonishment to foreigners and visitors to our shores. Beyond the extraordinary feats described in the mythohistories, account after account in the early modern period tell the same story—the Irish were remarkably strong, quick, disciplined and skilful.

Tudor and Jacobean state reports, for example, are filled with comments on the physical attributes of the Irish.

"Boys can run like horses all day long" observed a German traveller in 1591, confirming English, French and Icelandic observations. The seeming ability of many Irishmen to run literally as quickly as horses for long periods of time, often remarked upon by Tudor-era English writers, was also known to medieval Icelanders.

Francis Bacon, in his Historie of Life and Death (London, 1638) remarks upon the remarkable longevity of the "Wild Irish", claiming they could live to a hundred and forty years of age.

There is a work by Edmund Hogan (The Irish People: Their Height, Form and Strength, Dublin, 1899) which compiles testimonies to the combat prowess of the Irish, taken mostly from the comments of English officers, who were both impressed and fearful of the military skills the Irish possessed, requesting by way of compensation more soldiers to gain the advantage of numerical superiority. There is abundant testimony regarding the quality of the Irish soldiers in French and Spanish service.

English priest Father John Good, in the 17th century revision of Camden, was astounded at the dexterity and flexibility of the Irish, which he attributed, along with their incredible hardiness, to the damp climate and their use of "ointments" and "washes".

In Laurent Vital's account of the Archduke Ferdinand's visit to Kinsale in Ireland, an extract from Le Premier Voyage de Charles-Quint en Espagne, de 1517 à 1518, we read of a Gaelic man who could leap into the sea and swim beneath the waves for so long and with such speed that he was able to catch fish with his bare hands.

Observers described the Irish as uncannily acute. The Attorney General John Davies records in his 1612 "A Discovery of the True Causes Why Ireland was Never Entirely Subdued" his impression was of "the bodies and minds of the people endued with extraordinary abilities of nature."

The Legend Within

While it’s probably fair to say that there has been a decline from the physical peak attested to in medieval and early modern accounts for various reasons (Casement said that a ruin had come over the people in every respect since the Great Famine), we can be confident that the latent seeds of legend remain strong.

After all, Irish athletes tend to punch far above their weight (often literally) in international competitions, and there’s no shortage of world-famous Irish intellectuals and artists.

This part of our rich heritage cannot be reclaimed without discipline, which is nothing to be afraid of—indeed discipline could well be called a Gaelic muse, to be enjoyed rather than endured, cultivated as a part of our heritage in its own right.

Please note: the following sections consist of opinion pieces not intended to be construed as health or medical advice or directions. If you intend to make radical changes to your diet or start any course of exercise, consult your doctor or a qualified medical professional before doing so.

Modern Discoveries

Modern medicine has begun to rediscover what the ancient Gaels knew well—-there is no better way to maintain good health and to keep off or even reverse the effects of ageing than by eating well and getting plenty of exercise. It is the fountain of youth.

Strength exercise in particular has been implicated in preventing a wide range of physical and mental illnesses, but also cardio and endurance work. It improves confidence and our ability to concentrate. Neither should flexibility be neglected, since that contributes to our reflex speed and ultimately to our mobility.

Exercise and being athletic goes even deeper than the musculoskeletal system. It affects everything from systemic inflammation levels to endocrine profiles to autonomic/sympathetic tone.

Optimal endocrine profiles and low inflammation have profound effects on our faces too. In women it can manifest as a favourable hormone ratio which has a positive effect on the features. Optimised cortisol levels, peaks, and troughs, which exercise induces, increases attractiveness as well, as with sympathetic tone.

Another important factor is that exercise and athleticism is associated with better posture, fascia planes, breathing, etc, all of which actively and continually affect the face—muscle and bone included. Think of someone who sits slouched at computer all day with poor physical fitness. The opposite appearance is found in pinnacle athletes - they tend to have well-defined and sculpted faces with good postures, musculature and muscle tone, breathing patterns and so on.

There are also obvious basic benefits like having less facial fat, less “puffy face”, and clearer and more vibrant skin because exercise is good for that, and so on. It’s an extensive list.

Realistic Expectations

Regardless of your age or state of health—and there is no age or condition that cannot benefit from some kind of exercise—it’s important to have realistic expectations. Whether we’re talking about strength, tone, flexibility, endurance, or any other metric of fitness, it will take anywhere from six months to a year to start seeing benefits, and you’re unlikely to reach your peak in under three to five years.

This should discourage nobody, since the benefits mount up incrementally in every part of life while you exercise. And really, even if it takes five years, would you rather be fit and healthy in five years time or worse off than you are right now?

Just remember that consistency is the key to success, and success is a lifelong journey.

Go at a pace that suits you, pushing your boundaries only a little and only when you feel the time has come to do so. Pushing too hard and too fast can cause injuries, possibly quite serious injuries which may prevent you from exercising for weeks or months, so pace yourself.

In this marathon, the secret is to continue the journey no matter what.

Find the Time, Make the Space

When we talk about doing anything consistently and daily over a period of years or decades, it’s important to remove or reduce any obstacles to that activity to the greatest extent possible. As the seanfhocail advises, “even a pebble is heavy when carried far”.

Don’t be afraid to invest a little in terms of equipment and to remove impediments to your personal goals where possible. Going to the gym might be cheaper in the short run, but maybe it also adds a couple of hours commuting and changing time. Over the course of a year, that costs a full month spent commuting, twenty four hours a day! To say nothing of possible weather, parking or concerns about opening hours.

Gym is still the best option for many people but also serves as a reminder to be ruthless in making the time and space to get that exercise in—regardless of whatever difficulties may arise.

Seanbhia, Food of our Forebears

Most would agree that the foundation stone for physical fitness is a good diet. No matter how much we exercise we can’t outrun poor nutrition. It affects every part of our lives. So what do we mean when we say “good”? We mean fitted for our individual needs and for our bodies, keeping in mind that everyone’s body is different.

A five foot tall woman in her forties working in an office will have very different dietary and energy needs to a six foot five man aged twenty who works on a building site or farm! The wide range of differences between people limits the degree to which anyone proposing a diet can generalise, but we can suggest a few ideas for your consideration.

Some of the more popular fad diets going around recently have been the carnivore and paleo(lithic) diet, both of which attempt to find an ancient baseline selection of foods which will suit our bodies better than modern processed foods. Anecdotally they appear to produce positive results and are thinking along the right lines, but we believe they don’t go far enough.

People are omnivores, we can eat a wide variety of foods and this is a good thing, but some foods are more easily accepted and processed by our systems. Lactose tolerance or intolerance based on ethnic background is a good example that one size doesn’t fit all.

Seanbhia is the combination of two Irish words into one, those being sean, meaning old, and bia, meaning food. This doesn't refer to food past its sell-by date but to the idea that various ethnic groups which have been in approximately the same region for extended periods of time have adapted themselves primarily to the types of food readily available in those areas—and in the proportions which  would have been available.

Just as several thousand years is enough time to produce differences in average height, complexion, and so on, it’s ample time to develop dietary preferences. The longer populations have remained in an area, the more pronounced these differences are likely to become.

What does this mean for Irish people?

Most people in Ireland come from one of a few relatively homogenous groups which have remained local to western and northern Europe since at least the Bronze Age, with some able to trace their roots back even further.

We can use this information and what we understand about the lifestyles of those who came before to develop a hopefully optimally healthy diet best tailored to our own requirements.

Seanbhia, the Basic Principles

Before and to a great extent after the advent of farming, at least in Ireland, animal-based nutrition would have been the main food source available all year round. Looking at the ancient Mesolithic to early Bronze Age periods, beef, pork or boar, venison, fresh and saltwater fish, shellfish, fowl and game birds of every sort would have formed a central part of what people ate.

Bears were also on the menu but we don’t recommend bear stew nowadays.

Beef in particular was an Irish favourite, given that the Irish word for “road” means “cow crossing” and there is evidence to suggest people have kept cattle herds for millennia in this country. Dairy products also have a long history among the Irish.

Fruit and nuts were only in season for a couple of months of the year and they might not have been especially abundant, but included apples, crowberries, raspberries, blackberries, water-lily seeds, tubers, and hazelnuts, which were stored underground over the winter and were boiled to extract their oil.

Grains were minimally available. Carbohydrates generally were not all that common, although bulrush roots were made into a kind of flour.

Edible vegetables would have been difficult to preserve but eaten when available.

High sugar products were largely nonexistent with the exception of honey, much of which was made into mead, one of the oldest alcoholic drinks in the world. Consumption of alcohol was generally reserved for feasts  or special occasions which happened a few times a year, and excessive drinking was frowned upon.

The development of Irish cuisine was drastically changed by the Tudor conquest of Ireland in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The English introduced a new system of intensive grain-based agriculture and led to large areas of land being turned over to grain production. This altered the diet of the Irish populace by exporting traditionally consumed products like beef abroad as cash crops instead.

Moving into the modern era, in Ireland we now have universal access to enormous quantities of low cost, high quality food, usually heavy in carbohydrates, sugars, and oils, which is causing serious health problems for many people, especially with chairbound lifestyles.

In terms of what we consumed historically, this abundance has only been around for 50 of the last ten thousand years, or about half a percent of that time. We’re not adapted to or able for it.

Seanbhia, a Practical Example

In practical terms, what does this mean?

• We should predominantly eat meat, fish, chicken and related animal products. Meat should be purchased from a local butchers rather than a supermarket if possible, for reasons of quality and in support of local Irish businesses.
• Fat may be a good idea for people who are doing a lot of manual labour, in limited amounts.
• Green vegetables and things like turnips and onions can also be eaten with confidence.
• Carbohydrates should be kept to a minimum—potatoes are right out, and most processed modern grains such as rice, wheat or oats don’t resemble anything that would have been available for most of human history. The closest modern grain you can buy would be hulled barley—this is barley with the hull still on, not pearl barley, which has the nutritious exterior stripped away. An ancient grain, hulled barley also has the advantage of being high in fibre, although it does need to be soaked for a while before cooking. It can be purchased from farms, or ordered online from places like Fruit Hill Farm ( https://www.fruithillfarm.com/healthy-living-and-eating/grain-mills/organic-naked-barley.html ) This works as a replacement for rice, potatoes or any other kind of grain.
• Bread, pastries and similar processed carbohydrates should be kept to a minimum.
• Sweet foods, dried fruit, and high sugar foods should be avoided entirely. Sweet drinks are particularly sketchy, since in liquid form the sugar enters our systems much more quickly than in solid form. This overwhelms our ability to do anything useful with the energy so it just turns into fat at best. At worst it can cause serious damage.
• Highly processed foods with the exception of things like dairy should also be minimised as much as possible. Whole foods are ideal, especially ones where you know the point of origin, and should be sourced locally.
• Minimally processed spices, herbs and flavourings (including black tea or coffee) have little to no impact on calories or nutrition and can be largely enjoyed without concern.
• Pay the farmer or pay the doctor, and avoid junk food too.

If in doubt, ask yourself—would this have been available to Irish people a thousand or two thousand years ago? It’s not a hard and fast rule but can act as a good guideline.

Dairy

The role of dairy in the historical Irish diet should get a particular mention. Going back to Neolithic times, the stone age, there is a great deal of evidence for the widespread consumption of dairy products among Irish populations. This is a little puzzling since there seems to be limited genetic evidence for lactose tolerance (the ability to drink raw milk), so it is likely that they ate and drank a lot of very highly processed dairy, such as cheese, curds, buttermilk, cream, and butter.

Residue analysis of burnt remains embedded in Neolithic pottery shows an overwhelming emphasis on dairy products, followed by boiled meat. No evidence was found for highly processed grain products like bread.

People continued to eat more or less the same diet in the Bronze Age, indicating a degree of cultural continuity rather than disruptive displacement of existing populations. 99% of the grains consumed during this period were whole grain barley, with other grains being weeds which were accidentally mixed with the barley crop.

Hazelnuts were widely stored and consumed from the earliest times.

The Irish diet did not change much even during the Iron Age, although the climate did change considerably, still relying on a substantial consumption of dairy products from childhood, which led to the people of Ireland being tall and well built, as they had been for millennia beforehand. Roast pork, salmon, eel, pigeon, apples, peas and berries all supplemented this diet.

The centrality of dairy continued right up to the end of the medieval period and into the early modern, when the foodstuffs Irish people had eaten since time immemorial were taken from them for sale abroad, and greatly inferior produce like potatoes was given to them instead. In fact, dairy made up the broad bulk of their diet during the medieval period, usually mixed with grains to create a type of porridge or custard that was calorie-dense and nutritious.

We can also get hints of how the Irish ate meat from early modern accounts, often roasted or dried, sometimes boiled, and even occasionally eaten raw after the French fashion. Blood is also spoken of as a condiment, although this might not be entirely accurate given the dubious source.

Also worthy of mention is how the Irish habit of holding communal feasts, sometimes in the woods, with every level and member of society eating at the same table, outraged the English.

The ancient poem, "From the Vision of Mac Conglinne", grants an insight into the ancient Irish diet - heavy on meat and dairy:

FROM THE VISION OF MAC CONGLINNE

A vision that appeared to me,
An apparition wonderful
I tell to all:
There was a coracle all of lard
Within a port of New-milk Lake
Upon the world's smooth sea.

We went into that man-of-war,
'Twas warrior-like to take the road
O'er ocean's heaving waves.
Our oar-strokes then we pulled
Across the level of the main,
Throwing the sea's harvest up
Like honey, the sea-soil.

The fort we reached was beautiful,
With works of custards thick,
Beyond the lake.
Fresh butter was the bridge in front,
The rubble dyke was fair white wheat,
Bacon the palisade.

Stately, pleasantly it sat,
A compact house and strong.
Then I went in:
The door of it was hung beef,
The threshold was dry bread,
Cheese-curds the walls.

Smooth pillars of old cheese
And sappy bacon props
Alternate ranged;
Stately beams of mellow cream,
White posts of real curds
Kept up the house.

Behind it was a well of wine,
Beer and bragget in streams,
Each full pool to the taste.
Malt in smooth wavy sea
Over a lard-spring's brink
Flowed through the floor.

A lake of juicy pottage
Under a cream of oozy lard
Lay 'twixt it and the sea.
Hedges of butter fenced it round,
Under a crest of white-mantled lard
Around the wall outside.

A row of fragrant apple-trees,
An orchard in its pink-tipped bloom,
Between it and the hill.
A forest tall of real leeks,
Of onions and of carrots, stood
Behind the house.

Within, a household generous,
A welcome of red, firm-fed men,
Around the fire:
Seven bead-strings and necklets seven
Of cheeses and of bits of tripe
Round each man's neck.

The Chief in cloak of beefy fat
Beside his noble wife and fair
I then beheld.
Below the lofty caldron's spit
Then the Dispenser I beheld,
His fleshfork on his back.

Wheatlet son of Milklet,
Son of juicy Bacon,
Is mine own name.
Honeyed Butter-roll
Is the man's name
That bears my bag.

Haunch of Mutton
Is my dog's name,
Of lovely leaps.
Lard, my wife,
Sweetly smiles
Across the brose.

Cheese-curds, my daughter,
Goes round the spit,
Fair is her fame.
Corned Beef is my son,
Who beams over a cloak,
Enormous, of fat.

Savour of Savours
Is the name of my wife's maid:
Morning-early
Across New-milk Lake she went.

Beef-lard, my steed,
An excellent stallion
That increases studs;
A guard against toil
Is the saddle of cheese
Upon his back.

A large necklace of delicious cheese-curds
Around his back;
His halter and his traces all
Of fresh butter.

Other Notes

Calorie counts are usually written on the packaging of food, or can be found out online. A small person with a sedentary lifestyle might only need 1500 a day, while a professional bodybuilder might put away 3500 or more a day. Try to give your body a chance to rest its digestive system and don’t eat after 4pm, or six hours before you usually sleep— and get plenty of sleep to promote healing and health. Steamers and Foreman grills are great for clean cooking. Lastly, drink ample water, usually 1.5 litres for an adult, early in the day.

Walking

For all of human history up to the most recent fraction of a percent, more or less everyone walked long distances every single day of their lives. Working in fields, hunting and gathering, going to and from work, getting food and water, hours would be spent daily just travelling from one place to another on foot.

As such it is important to try to get in at least a half an hour, preferably an hour or more, of brisk walking every day. It’s an excellent way to burn calories and the time spent can be profitably used as never before, listening to audiobooks, podcasts, or even lessons through earbuds.

As adapted as we are to walking however, we’re not especially well suited to walking (or jogging or jumping) on hard stone surfaces such as can be found everywhere these days. Without proper cushioning, microdamage to the joints and internal organs will accumulate over time, potentially causing serious long term problems.

So your first and most important piece of exercise equipment should be a pair of well-padded runners or trainers, and/or shoe inserts. The less of a jolt you feel when walking or jumping on concrete, the better.

Cardio

After walking, jogging or running for cardio exercise should be your next step. The heart, respiratory system and cardiovascular system all benefit by reducing the risk of high blood pressure, strokes and heart disease.

This is particularly a problem in Ireland, where more than a quarter of deaths are caused by heart disease, as well as the associated degradation in quality of life for years beforehand.

If you’re new to jogging, take your time and don’t try to run a marathon on day one! Run a certain distance each day, and when you feel ready, run a little more.  This is called progressive exercise and over the course of years will transform someone who can barely manage a hundred meters into a person who can do a five kilometre run before breakfast.

As with walking, good footwear is an essential, and try to run on soft surfaces or tracks where possible.

Skipping is a good option for cardio if you don't have access to a jogging area.

Swimming

Swimming is a good compromise between strength training and cardio exercise, offering benefits from both worlds. A dedicated swimmer can develop good cardio health and good muscle tone simultaneously, but it shouldn’t be relied upon entirely by itself.

Another advantage of swimming in Ireland is that if you have access to open water, whether a lake or the sea, it will most likely be cold water,  especially outside of the summer months.

Recent research indicates that immersion in cold water can be tremendously good for you, improving mental health by increasing endorphin levels and improving resilience to stress. It also helps your immune system and metabolism. In essence, it toughens you up in every way.

Just remember, progressive development is the only way to go—you could potentially get hyperthermia by exposing yourself to too much cold all at once.

Stretching

A great activity for mobility and flexibility is stretching—it can be done in a very limited space and needs no special equipment, or any equipment at all.

Stretching regularly will improve your performance in physical activities, decrease your risk of injuries, help your joints move through their full range of motion, increase muscle blood flow, enable your muscles to work most effectively and improve your ability to do daily activities

Each part of your body can be stretched, your hands, your arms, your shoulders and back, your waist and hips, legs, calves, thighs and feet.

It’s a good idea to develop a routine to work through your stretches daily from top to bottom.

There are a wide variety of tutorials on youtube which provide some wonderful ideas on stretching exercises for people of all ages, and do search for your age group. Here are a few examples:

• 15 Minute Beginner Stretch Flexibility Routine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_xrDAtykMI
• 8 Minute Stretching Routine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI51zRzgIe4
• Beginners Stretching Exercises for General Flexibility https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ituVsoEScfk
• 10 Minute Beginner Full Body Stretch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnCQ-MECZSw
• More tips: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/stretching/art-20047931

Strength

Building strength should be one of the main focuses of your fitness plan. What this usually means is lifting weights or using your own bodyweight, whether at home or in the gym.

Bodyweight exercises can be among the most useful strength builders, such as push up, pull ups, sit ups and so on, but for a full range of growth external weights are usually needed.

• A basic weightlifting kit for home use would include:
• Two dumb bells
• A bar bell
• An exercise mat (or several piled one on top of the other)
• A pullup bar for installation over a doorway (be sure to get permission from the property owner beforehand, and pad it properly to avoid damaging the door jamb)
• A stool or bench sturdy and large enough to lie on will also be useful

Just as with stretching, weightlifting works on one muscle group at a time, or even subsets of individual muscle groups. The full science of weightlifting is beyond the scope of this document to cover, but a basic list of exercises might include:

• Chin ups, sit ups, push ups and burpees, which exercise a wide range of muscles
• Bicep curls and bicep curls with the dumb bells held upright
• Overhead lifts with dumb bells and a bar bell
• Tricep curls, held over the head with the weights lowered over the back
• Side lifts
• Side lifts and raises while lying on your back, also called “flights”, which build chest muscles
• Shoulder shrugs while holding dumb bells
• Squats with weights on your shoulders for thigh muscles (may need a partner to help )
• Standing on your toes while holding a weighted bar bell to exercise the calf muscles
• Glute presses with a weight on your hips

These simple exercises cover most or all of the major muscle groups, and examples of each can be found on youtube.

Lifting the Feat-Stones

Most worthy of mention in the strength category—and for advanced students only— is the restoration of the Irish sport of stone lifting, spoken of in the oldest Irish tales and legends.

Whenever there was a wedding, a social event, a funeral, or locals just felt like it, men of times past would gather from all corners and try their hand in competition against one another and against the local stone. In one story, many men tried and failed to lift it to chest height, but one old man succeeded and even kissed it three times for good measure. Because of this, he was cheered for his strength and prowess, and spoken of with respect for years to come, the subject of local legend and storytelling.

At Drummond in County Carlow, stories speak of the mighty Andrew Neill who managed to lift a large stone onto a nearby embankment. “It is said that as many as four hundred people used to come every Sunday to try and lift the stone. But it was never stirred from where Andrew Neill put it.” Only one man in two hundred could move the Prevago Stone in County Leitrim.

Stone lifting was a serious business and carried with it a lot of respect. That’s not to say every occasion was so solemn, since at some funerals the games included “lifting the corpse”!

Strength-stones or feat-stones are dotted around the Irish countryside, and were sometimes used as a trial of manhood for young men. If he could raise the stone from the ground, he was respected. If he lifted it to his knees, he was a champion, among the best. And if it went all the way to his chest, he was a hero, a marvel of physical power and the men spoke of him with awe.

These stones are usually very heavy, ranging from a hundred kilos or so to more than two hundred, often found in graveyards, which speaks of their connection to funeral games, and are irregular in shape, making them difficult to easily grasp.

This tradition has persisted, like many other Irish traditions, in the Highland Games in Scotland, but has enjoyed a modern revival due to the work of David Keohane, multiple national, European and world champion in the kettlebell sport.

He has been travelling up and down the country, reading old stories and finding old stones, lifting them and sparking fresh interest in this most ancient of Irish traditions. His facebook profile can be found here if you’d like to get in touch and join or support his efforts:

https://www.facebook.com/keohan.david

Other Notes

It’s important not to push too hard too quickly. A good rule of thumb is find a weight you can comfortably lift about ten times for a given set of exercises, but struggle to reach twenty repetitions. Keep lifting that weight level until you can manage twenty easily, then increase the weight until you are outside your comfort zone.

Usually this translates to increasing the weight you are moving once every two or three weeks.

Depending on how much weight you are lifting, it may be a good idea to take a day or two between lifting sessions to allow your muscles to repair themselves and rebuild. This is a matter of personal choice, but typically the heavier the weights, the longer the recovery time is recommended.

The best times to exercise are when you're fresh in the morning or afternoon—don’t exercise when tired. It’s not a competition to see who can endure the most but a careful, practical process of building.

In terms of nutrition, whey isolate can be very helpful as a protein source to help build strength, and raw red onions may help reduce inflammation after exercise.

Be wary of exercises which engage the back, especially deadlifting, which is lifting a heavy barbell straight up from the ground to waist height. This generally offers a poor injury to benefit ratio, you’re more likely to put your back out than build muscles doing this particular lift.

Needless to say a good soundtrack can help you push through difficult days!

 

Chapter List (click to read):

1. Foreword
2 The Irish Language
3. Reading
4. Making and Shaping
5. The Physical Gael
6. The Warrior Gael
- The Crios Belt
- Open Hand Traditions
- Collar and Elbow Wrestling
- Gaelic Weapons
- Seanbhata
- Seanbhata Basics
- Seanbhata Guards
- Seanbhata Strikes and Blocks
- Seanbhata Close Fighting
- The Heroic Feats
7. Tradition and Culture
8. Organisation