Kilkenny cats explained

The Kilkenny cats are a fabled pair of cats from County Kilkenny (or Kilkenny city in particular) in Ireland, who fought each other so ferociously that only their tails remained at the end of the battle. Often the absurd implication is that they have eaten each other. In the nineteenth century the Kilkenny cats were a common simile for any conflict likely to ruin both combatants. Kilkenny cat is also used more generally for a fierce fighter or quarrelsome person. These senses are now rather dated.[1] In the later twentieth century the motif was reclaimed by Kilkenny people as a positive symbol of tenacity and fighting spirit, and "the Cats" is the county nickname for the Kilkenny hurling team.[2] The original story is attested from 1807 as a simple joke or Irish bull; some early versions are set elsewhere than Kilkenny. Nevertheless, theories have been offered seeking a historical basis for the story's setting.

Versions of the story

The earliest attested version of the story is from June 1807, in Anthologia, a collection of jokes and humorous pieces copied by "W.T." of Inner Temple from unnamed previous publications.[3] Steven Connor characterises the story as an Irish bull.[4] Under the heading "Kilkenny Cats" it runs:[5]

In a company, consisting of naval officers, the discourse happened to turn on the ferocity of small animals; when an Irish gentleman present stated his opinion to be, that a Kilkenny cat, of all animals, was the most ferocious; and added, "I can prove my assertion, by a fact within my own knowledge:— I once," said he, "saw two of these animals fighting in a timber yard, and willing to see the result of a long battle, I drove them into a deep sawpit, and placing some boards over the mouth, left them to their amusement. Next morning I went to see the conclusion of the fight, and what d'ye think I saw?"– "One of the cats dead, probably," —replied one of the company.— "No by Ja—s! there was nothing left in the pit, but the two tails and a bit of flue!"

The tale was repeated verbatim the next month in The European Magazines review of Anthologia,[6] as well as The Sporting Magazine, also in London,[7] and Walker's Hibernian Magazine in Dublin.[8] It reappeared in 1812 in Thomas Tegg's The Spirit of Irish Wit,[9] and in the 1813 supplement to William Barker Daniel's Rural Sports.[10]

The following appears in Thomas Gilliland's The Trap, an 1808 satire on the theme of love:[11]

When I was last at Kilkenny, said Teague, I saw two big ram-cats fight a duel for love, your honour; and they fought, and fought, till they ate each other up. Devil burn me, if I lie, your honour! I went after them into the gutter! "Tommy!" says I, "my dear Phely!" says I, but no Tommy or Phely was there: I found only the tips of their tails.

An 1811 joke book from Boston in the United States included:[12]

On a gentleman's reading an account of a tiger fight in the East Indies, an Irishman present exclaimed: 'a tiger be hang'd! Why, sir, I once myself saw two Kilkenny cats fight till they devoured each other up, excepting the very tips of their two tails.'

Another version is alluded to in an 1816 critique of a pamphlet by Andrew O'Callaghan, master of Kilkenny College:[13]

There is a story told in Kilkenny, that several cats had been locked up in a room, for a fortnight together, without food, and, upon opening the door, there was nothing found but the tail of one of them. Surely Mr. O'C. must have been dreaming of this native story, when he made his arguments thus to swallow themselves, after destroying each other—but the tail of one of them remainsResponding to the 1816 critique, Rowley Lascelles, an English antiquarian based in Ireland, denied the existence of such a story, which he saw as a slur on Kilkenny.[14]

Although in 1835 John Neal called the story "one of the oldest and most undoubted Joe [Miller]s",[15] the first edition of Joe Miller's Jests to include it was in 1836 (verbatim from Anthologia).[16] Theodore Hook's 1837 novel Jack Brag jocularly sources the story to [Joe] Miller's History of Ireland.[17] [18]

Elsewhere than Kilkenny

An 1817 memoir of the Irish wit John Philpot Curran situates the story in Sligo rather than Kilkenny, as a tall tale told by Curran:[19] [20]

Passing his first summer at Cheltenham ... he had resort to a story to draw himself into notice. ... The conversation of the table turning altogether on the stupid, savage, and disgusting amusement of cock-fighting, he was determined to put an end to it, by the incredible story of the Sligo cats.

At [a cat-fight meeting in Sligo] three matches were fought on the first day ... and before the third of them was finished (on which bets ran very high), dinner was announced in the inn where the battle was fought. The company agreed ... to lock up the room, leaving the key in trust to Mr. Curran, who protested to God, he never was so shocked, that his head hung heavy on his shoulders, and his heart was sunk within him, on entering with the company into the room, and finding that the cats had actually eaten each other up, save some little bits of tails which were scattered round the room.

The Irish part of the company saw the drift, ridicule, and impossibility of the narrative, and laughed immoderately, while the English part yawned and laughed, seeing others laugh, and sought relief in each other's countenances.

In Real life in Ireland, an 1821 stage Irish novel by Pierce Egan, Captain Grammachree, a retired soldier, tells Brian Boru, a young country squire, of a cat-fight in the neighbourhood of Dublin:[21]

'There was hundreds betted, but not a cross won or lost; for by Jasus! they left nothing on the ground but a bunch of hair and two tails!'

'What!' said Brian, 'then I suppose the cats ran away?'

'An Irish cat run away!' sneered Grammachree, 'no; never! by the powers of Moll Kelly! they eat one another up!'

An 1830 "dialogue on Popery" by one Jacob Stanley summarises "the Travellers tale of the Irish Cat fight", giving no specific location.[22]

The battle of the cats of Ireland

S. Redmond in 1864 in Notes and Queries recounted a tale told to him "more than thirty years" earlier when he was "very young" by "a Kilkenny gentleman", about a battle "some forty years before" [i.e. about 1790] on "a plain near that ancient city":[23]

One night, in the summer time, all the cats in the city and county of Kilkenny, were absent from their "local habitations;" and next morning, the plain alluded to (I regret I have not the name) was found covered with thousands of slain tabbies; and the report was, that almost all the cats in Ireland had joined in the contest; as many of the slain had collars on their necks, which showed that they had collected from all quarters of the island. The cause of the quarrel, however, was not stated; but it seemed to have been a sort of provincial faction fight between the cats of Ulster and Leinster—probably the quadrupeds took up the quarrels of their masters, as at that period there was very ill feeling between the people of both provinces.

Although Redmond states "This has nothing to do with the story of the two famous Kilkenny cats", the two have occasionally been linked subsequently.[24] A similar story was told in Charles Henry Ross' 1867 Book of Cats,[25] to which Kilkenny antiquarian John G. A. Prim responded that he had heard such a story told of many places in Ireland, but not of Kilkenny.[18] In 1863, Once A Week had a story of a similar battle in Yorkshire.[26] Folklorist John O'Hanlon in 1898 published a version from John Kearns of Irishtown, Dublin which situated the battle on Scald Hill in Sandymount, the future site of Star of the Sea Catholic Church, witnessed by curate Father Corrigan.[27] In the 1930s, the Irish Folklore Commission noted a seanchaí from Rossinver, County Leitrim, tell of a cat battle in Locan Dhee near Kinlough on New Year's Day 1855.[28]

Use as a simile

The story was sufficiently well known in the 19th century to be used frequently as a simile for "combatants who fight until they annihilate each other";[29] [30] to "fight like [the] Kilkenny cats" means "to engage in a mutually destructive struggle".[31] Early instances include: (from 1814) an account in Niles' Register of the loss of USS Wasp after sinking HMS Avon;[32] (from 1816) the critique of Andrew O'Callaghan mentioned earlier; a letter from the 4th Duke of Buccleuch to Walter Scott comparing Lord Byron's poem "Darkness" to the story;[33] and a riposte to disagreeing literary critics:[34]

Indeed, so mortal is your reciprocal hostility, that your victims may, with Mercutio, form the reasonable expectation, that, being, 'two such, we shall have none shortly, for one will kill the other;'[35] and like the celebrated Kilkenny cats, leave no other vestige to designate the tribe of ferae naturae to which you belong, than an odd tooth or a claw!

One context for the simile was advocating isolationism, allowing one's enemies to defeat each other, or a divide-and-conquer policy. A report in Niles' Register of Spanish church opposition to the 1817 tax reform of wished 'the fate of the "Kilkenny cats"' on "Ferdinand and his priests".[36] Similarly Charles Napier in 1823 hoped "the French and Spaniards [would] war like Kilkenny cats";[37] likewise Figaro in London in 1832 urging British neutrality after the Ten Days' Campaign[38] and Charles Darwin in 1833 in Buenos Aires during the Revolution of the Restorers.[39] J. S. Pughe in a 1904 political cartoon in Puck depicted Japan and Russia as Kilkenny cats fighting the Russo-Japanese War in Manchuria. Similarly in 1941, after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Clifford Berryman depicted Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin as "a modern version of the Kilkenny Cats".[40] In The German Ideology, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels accuse Bruno Bauer of fomenting antagonism between Max Stirner and Ludwig Feuerbach "as the two Kilkenny cats in Ireland".[41]

Conversely, the fable serves as a cautionary tale for the moral "united we stand, divided we fall". It was invoked in 1827, in The Lancet during disputes around the Royal College of Physicians;[42] and in The Literary Gazette of the rivalry between Drury Lane and Covent Garden theatres.[43] It was a common metaphor before and during the American Civil War, a conflict seen as likely to destroy both sides;[44] especially when criticising the war of attrition strategy of Ulysses S. Grant. Some extended the metaphor to say the North would win as having the longest tail; this was popularly reported in 1864 as a quip by Grant,[44] but George Gordon Meade made the same comparison in an 1861 letter to his wife.[45] Some Mormons viewed the Civil War as fulfilling a prophecy by founder Joseph Smith, who said after an 1843 attempt to arrest him, "The constitution of the United States declares that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be denied. Deny me the writ of habeas corpus, and I will fight with gun, sword, cannon, whirlwind, and thunder, until they are used up like the Kilkenny cats."[44] [46] Donald Dewar, the then First Minister of Scotland, in 1999 denied media talk of a rift with John Reid, the Scottish Secretary, conceding, "I must confess the casual outsider who simply read the headlines might think it was a collection of Kilkenny cats fighting".[47] In the Supreme Court of India in December 2018, K. K. Venugopal, the Attorney General, justified the government's suspension of Alok Verma and Rakesh Asthana from the Central Bureau of Investigation by saying, "The government was watching with amazement the director and his deputy fight like Kilkenny cats."[48] Indian media explained the simile in their reports on the case.[49]

It was invoked in 1837 for political gridlock in divided legislatures: by Thomas Corwin in the 24th Congress,[50] and by Thomas Carlyle in .[51] James Grant (1837, 1843) and S. Gerlis (2001) draw analogy with litigants who are both ruined by legal costs.[52] It was often used in accounts of factionalism within Irish nationalist politics,[53] such as between the Repeal Association and Young Ireland in the 1840s,[54] Isaac Butt against Joseph Biggar in the 1870s,[55] or the Parnell split of the 1890s.[56] Francis Jacox invoked the Kilkenny cats in 1865 when enumerating "Certain Eligible Cases of Mutual Extermination" in Bentley's Miscellany.[57] Prosper Mérimée alluded to French: les chats de Kilkenny in 1860s correspondence, prompting a query to L'Intermédiaire des chercheurs et curieux in 1904,[58] the answer to which was prefaced, "Those of us who ever had an English governess will recall the 'Kilkenny Cats'."[59] In his diary in 1950, Ernest Bevin, the UK Foreign Secretary, described the UK's Cold-War security links to the US as being "tied to the tail of a Kilkenny cat".[60]

A lone Kilkenny cat may be invoked to symbolise ferocity or vigour without the implication of mutual destruction. In an 1825 humorous verse, Anthony Bleecker, inquiring into the cause of death of a peaceable cat, asks: "Did some Kilkenny cat make thee a ghost?"[61] John Galt in 1826 refers to "an enormous tiger almost as big as a Kilkenny cat".[62] In an 1840 story by Edgar Allan Poe, "Sir Pathrick O'Grandison, Barronitt, of Connacht" says he was "mad as a Kilkenny cat" when a rival came to court his beloved.[29] [63] In George Lippard's 1843 satire of Philadelphia publishers, Irishman Phelix Phelligrim exclaims, when his associates are cursing and red-faced with anger, "Its in a fine humor ye are, gentleman! The Kilkenny cats was a mere circumstance to ye!"[64] Leo Richard Ward in 1939 described someone as "contrary and mean as a Kilkenny cat".[65] In 2009, a Children's Court magistrate in Sydney described a schoolgirl arrested for fighting as a "Kilkenny cat".[66]

Reclaimed

Irish counties have nicknames, some long established and in general use, others invented by sports journalists covering inter-county Gaelic games. The Kilkenny county team, which has won more All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championships than any other county, has been called "the Cats" in newspapers since at least the 1980s.[67]

In 1998 a man in Clark County, Washington, changed his surname from "Kenny" to "Kilkenny", reversing a change his great-grandfather had made to avoid the fighting stereotype associated with the name "Kilkenny" in the United States.[68]

Origin theories

The simplest theory for the story is that it is merely an Irish joke or Irish bull,[15] [4] [69] and that the selection of Kilkenny as opposed to somewhere else in Ireland is arbitrary, perhaps favoured by the alliteration of the phrase "Kilkenny cats".[70] John G. A. Prim in Notes and Queries in 1850 conceded that this was the most commonly accepted theory ("This ludicrous anecdote has, no doubt, been generally looked upon as an absurdity of the Joe Miller class").[71] La Belle Assemblée in 1823 credited Curran (for Kilkenny rather than Sligo).[72] As regards the age of the story, Prim in 1868 wrote:[18]

Thirty years ago I made inquiries amongst the "oldest inhabitants" of my acquaintance then living, and their unanimous testimony was, that the story of the Kilkenny cats was in vogue as long as they could remember, and the recollections of some of them extended to nearly half a century before [1798].Rowley Lascelles claimed the 1816 version of the story was "taken from another, a well-known one, which is shortly this. Into a kennel of hounds, a dog of another species, did, one night, accidentally make its way. In the morning nothing was found of him but his tail."[14] In the Histoire Naturelle (1758), Buffon describes how twelve unfed captive field mice ate each other, the survivor having mutilated legs and tail.[73]

Prim proposed that the cats were originally an allegory for continual jurisdictional disputes between the adjacent municipal corporations of Kilkenny (or Englishtown, or Hightown) and Irishtown (or Saint Canice, or Newcourt).[71] Prim claimed that "mutual litigations, squabbles, assaults and batteries, with the accompanying imprisonments, fines and law costs",[18] which brought both near to bankruptcy, lasted from 1377 to "the end of the seventeenth century".[71] He claimed to have a paper on "the natural history of the Kilkenny cats" in preparation, and cited a Close Roll entry from the Irish Chancery for the 1377 date.[71] (The entry notes that Alexander de Balscot, the bishop of Ossory and sovereign of Irishtown, objected to Kilkenny corporation levying octroi for murage on Irishtown market.[74]) Prim's paper about the cats story was not published, though in one of 1870 he states, "Soon after [1658] the municipal body of Kilkenny became involved in an expensive lawsuit with the neighbouring Corporation of Irishtown, concerning questions of privilege and superior authority within the latter borough";[75] while in 1857 he wrote that John Hartstonge, as bishop of Ossory from 1693, and his brother Standish, as Recorder of Kilkenny from 1694, were on opposing sides of the dispute.[76] C. A. Ward suggested in 1891 that Prim's explanation is "simply a tale invented after the fable relating to the cats had got into circulation".[77] Prim's theory was bolstered in 1943 by publication, in a calendar of Ormond papers, of a 1596 arbitration between the corporations over markets, merchants' guilds, and musters.[78] The New International Encyclopedia in 1903 claimed this allegory was a satire by Jonathan Swift,[79] who attended Kilkenny College from 1673 to 1681. Henry Craik's 1894 biography suggests the alleged dispute between Englishtown and Irishtown was still in progress in Swift's time and was between Protestants and Catholics.[80] In fact, Irishtown corporation was controlled by the Church of Ireland bishop of Ossory.[81]

Thomas D'Arcy McGee in 1853 claimed the origin is a metaphor for feuding, not between Englishtown and Irishtown, but in the Confederation of Kilkenny between supporters and opponents of Ormonde's first peace in 1646.[82] D. M. R. Esson in 1971 gave Ormonde's second peace in 1648 as the source.[83]

Another theory was reported by "Juverna" in Notes and Queries in 1864, as having been heard "in Kilkenny, forty years ago, from a gentleman of unquestioned veracity".[84] The story holds that a group of bored soldiers stationed in Kilkenny held fights between two cats tied together by their tails and suspended from a clothes line or crosspost. Their commander forbade the practice, but they carried on in secret. When the commander was heard approaching, a soldier hastily cut through the cats' tails, allowing them to escape. The commander asked about the hanging tail ends, and the soldier averred that the cats had eaten each other. In Juverna's version, the troops were Hessians after the Wexford Rebellion of 1798 or Emmet's Insurrection of 1803.[84] A review in The Athenaeum of Ross' Book of Cats claims the soldiers were in the Williamite army of 1690.[85] Prim agrees that the episode occurred with Hessians in 1798, but states that their sport was influenced by a story already proverbial.[18] In other accounts, the soldiers were the regular garrison at Kilkenny Castle in Elizabethan times (1558–1603);[86] or the Catholic Confederate army of the 1640s; or Cromwell's occupying force of the 1650s.[87] John Baptist Crozier when Bishop of Ossory, Ferns and Leighlin endorsed the theory.[88] Joseph O'Connor's 1951 memoir has Matt Purcell, a comrade of his father's in the 10th (North Lincoln) Regiment of Foot in the 1880s, claim the original Kilkenny cats were tied together by the Earl of Ormond's jester.[89]

A 1324 witchcraft case in Kilkenny saw Dame Alice Kyteler flee and her servant Petronilla de Meath burnt at the stake after admitting relations with a demon which variously took the form of a dog, a cat, and an Aethiopian. This cat has occasionally been linked to the Kilkenny cats story. In 1857, John Thomas Gilbert made passing reference to "the Kilkenny cat of Dame Alice".[90] Austin Clarke's 1963 poem "Beyond the Pale" recounts the story of "Dame Kyttler", continuing:[91]

In 1986 Terence Sheehy suggested a link with the luchthigern,[92] a beast mentioned in Broccán Craibdech's poem in the "Book of Leinster" as having been slain by Midgna's wife at a place named Derc-Ferna. Luchthigern is usually interpreted as "mouse lord" and Derc-Ferna as Dunmore Cave near Kilkenny city. Sheehy follows Praeger[93] and P.W. Joyce[94] in regarding the luchthigern as a huge cat; in contrast to Brian O'Looney ("some sort of monster")[95] Thomas O'Neill Russell ("Can this word mean a great mouse?")[96] and Dobbs ("a demon or a giant").[97] A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology says that luchtigern was "Mouse-lord of Kilkenny, slain by a huge cat, Banghaisgidheach";[98] this is apparently a misreading of Joyce, who describes Midgna's (human) wife as a Irish: ban-gaisgidheach "female champion".[94]

In 1857, the editor of The Journal of the Kilkenny and South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society suggested that a heading "Grimalkin slain in Ireland" reported in a synopsis of the 1584 book Beware the Cat might be relevant;[99] this was disproved by an 1868 reply in the successor journal explaining that the episode (a version of the folktale "The King of the Cats") is set in Bantry in County Wexford about "Patrik Agore", a kern of John Butler, son of Richard Butler, 1st Viscount Mountgarret, who sets out to kill Cahir mac Art Kavanagh.[100]

Authorities which discuss various origin theories include Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (the Prim and Juverna theories in early editions;[101] the 19th edition follows Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable in plumping for the Juverna theory); the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (Prim, Juverna and J. P. Curran);[102] World Wide Words (Prim, Juverna, and Redmond's great battle);[103] Charles Earle Funk (the same three, Prim's credited to Swift; "probably none of them is true");[104] Terence Dolan (Juverna);[105] and Eric Partridge (Curran).[106] Cashman and Gaffney's Irish Proverbs & Sayings recounts the Juverna theory as "probably just a tall tale".[107], the Oxford English Dictionary does not comment on any of the purported historical origins.

Folkloristics

Comparative mythology seeks to find parallels with folklore elsewhere. Angelo de Gubernatis wrote in 1872:[108]

In a German belief noticed by, two cats that fight against each other are to a sick man an omen of approaching death. These two cats are probably another form of the children's game in Piedmont and Tuscany, called the game of souls, in which the devil and the angel come to dispute for the soul. Of the two cats, one is probably benignant and the other malignant; they represent perhaps night and twilight. An Irish legend tells us of a combat between cats, in which all the combatants perished, leaving only their tails upon the battlefield. (A similar tradition also exists in Piedmont, but is there, if I am not mistaken, referred to wolves.) Two cats that fight for a mouse, and allow it to escape, are also mentioned in Hindoo tradition.Moncure Daniel Conway built on this in 1879:[109]

De Gubernatis has a very curious speculation concerning the origin of our familiar fable the Kilkenny Cats, which he traces to the German superstition which dreads the combat between cats as presaging death to one who witnesses it; and this belief he finds reflected in the Tuscan child’s ‘game of souls,’ in which the devil and angel are supposed to contend for the soul. The author thinks this may be one outcome of the contest between Night and Twilight in Mythology; but, if the connection can be traced, it would probably prove to be derived from the struggle between the two angels of Death, one variation of which is associated with the legend of the strife for the body of Moses. The Book of Enoch says that Gabriel was sent, before the Flood, to excite the man-devouring giants to destroy one another. In an ancient Persian picture in my possession, animal monsters are shown devouring each other, while their proffered victim, like Daniel, is unharmed. The idea is a natural one, and hardly requires comparative tracing.Carl Van Vechten in 1922 was sceptical:[110]

Angelo de Gubernatis, too, is infected with this familiar and somewhat silly method of trying to explain all folk-stories symbolically. In "Zoological Mythology, or the Legends of Animals," he gives it as his belief that the celebrated fable of the Kilkenny Cats may mean the mythological contest between night and twilight. God pity these men!

"R.C." in 1874 suggested a comparison with an epigram by Palladas from the Greek Anthology:[111]

A son and father started a competitive contest as to which could eat up all the property by spending most, and after devouring absolutely all the money they have at last each other to eat up.

Archer Taylor suggested the Kilkenny cats "may involve an old story with parallels in Icelandic saga";[112] in the Bandamanna saga, Ofeig says, "And with me it has fared after the fashion of wolves, who eat each other up until they come to the tail, not knowing till then what they are about".[113]

The cat with two tails, a stonemason's carving associated with the Gobán Saor in Irish folklore, is sometimes conflated with the Kilkenny cats.[114]

Steven Connor comments, "Because they involve bodily illogic ... in which a body is imagined as simultaneously present and absent, the cake both eaten and miraculously intact, the fact of death is often in play in Irish bulls".[4]

In the 1930s the Irish Folklore Commission collected two origin stories:

One day a lady visitor came to Kilkenny Castle and brought with her three fat mice. The owner of the Castle never noticed anything until the place was full of mice. There were mice everywhere. They advertised for cats. Soon the castle was full of cats. The is how Kilkenny got the name "Kilkenny Cats".

In ancient times a team of Tipperary men visited Kilkenny to play a team of Kilkennymen at football. The Tipperarymen were winning, and advancing towards the Kilkenny–Tipperary border, when they were attacked by Kilkennymen and women, who fought like cats. The Tipperary followers retaliated, and picked up field stones and hurled them at their opponents, who had to retreat, the Tipperary team then being enabled to take the ball into their own territory.

Ever afterwards the term "stonethrowers" was applied to Tipperary and "Kilkenny cats" to Kilkenny.

Derivatives

Verse and song

Several poems have been written about the Kilkenny cats; the best known[117] appeared in November 1867 in New York in The Galaxy, along with a grandiloquent literary commentary extolling it as "the Kilkenny epic" and comparing its "unknown author" to Homer:[118] This is often reduced to a limerick by omitting "excepting their tails and some scraps of their nails".[119] With standardised spelling it has been included in 20th-century Mother Goose anthologies.[120] The full version has been set to music by Beth Anderson and performed on her 2004 album Quilt Music by Keith Borden and H. Johannes Wallmann. It was also set by W. Otto Miessner for gradeschool music lessons,[121] and arranged for six voices by Jean Berger as "There Were Two Cats at Kilkenny".[122] James Barr Walker published an expanded version in 1871.[123]

Ebenezer Mack's 1824 poem "The Cat-Fight" is a stage Irish mock-heroic dialogue in which Jemmy O'Kain tells Pat M'Hone or Mahone that none of the great battles from myth and history compare to the one he witnessed "in Kilkenny, down the mole" between "two Grimalkins", at the end of which "... not the tip end of a tail, / Was there / Left for a token."[124]

In Cruikshank's Omnibus in 1841 was printed "The Terrific Legend Of The Kilkenny Cats" by "C.B."; a 24-line poem in which there are six tomcats, owned and underfed by a drunk woman named O'Flyn; they resolve to kill and eat her, then turn on each other.[125] A musical setting by Barry Kay was recorded in 1951 by Benny Lee.[126] The poem also appeared on Islands Of The Moon, a 1981 spoken word album of poetry for children by the Barrow Poets.

The 1893 collection Irish Songs and Ballads, with words by Alfred Perceval Graves and music by Charles Villiers Stanford, included "The Kilkenny Cats", in which the cats resort to cannibalism after "the Game Laws came in", stopping them from hunting wild animals.[127] Allen Doone published an original song in 1916 called "The Kilkenny Cats" based on the Juverna story.[128] Other poetic adaptations include "The Kilkenny Legend" (Harvey Austin Fuller, 1873);[129] "The Kilkenny Cats" (Anne L. Huber, 1873);[130] "The Kilkenny Cats" (Laurence Winfield Scott, 1880);[131] "The Cats av Kilkenny" (Charles Anthony Doyle, 1911).[132]

Other

See also

References

Sources

Citations

Notes and References

  1. Book: Longman English-Chinese dictionary of English idioms . 1995 . Pearson . Hong Kong . 978-962-359-985-6 . 164.
    Pierini . Patrizia . Proper Names in English Phraseology . Linguistik Online . April 2008 . 36 . sec 4.6, table 23(d) . 23 November 2019 . 1615-3014 . 13 September 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190913131807/http://linguistik-online.net/36_08/pierini.html . dead .
  2. Web site: Illustrated Guide to Ireland's Eastern Legends . Ireland's Ancient East . . 23 November 2019.
  3. Web site: Harper . Douglas . kilkenny . Online Etymology Dictionary . 6 November 2019.
    Book: Thoreau, Henry David . Henry David Thoreau . Gillyboeuf . Thierry . Histoire de moi-même . 2017 . Le Passeur . 978-2-36890-553-1 . fn.113 . y . 30 November 2019 . fr.
  4. Connor . Steven . Ludicrous Inbodiment . Embodiment and Emancipation . 7 April 2017 . Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki.
  5. Book: Kilkenny Cats . Anthologia: A Collection of Epigrams, Ludicrous Epitaphs, Sonnets, Tales, Miscellaneous Anecdotes, &c. &c., Interspersed with Originals . W.T. . 1807 . C. Spilsbury . Preface and p.55 . y . https://books.google.com/books?id=92Iz5JSFMGwC&pg=PA55 . 6 November 2019.
  6. [Review] Anthologia ]. The European Magazine, and London Review . HathiTrust . June 1807 . 51 . 461 . 6 November 2019 . J. Fielding.
  7. Kilkenny Cats . Sporting Magazine . July 1807 . Rogerson & Tuxford . 175 . 6 November 2019.
  8. Kilkenny Cats . Walker's Hibernian Magazine, or, Compendium of Entertaining Knowledge . July 1807 . 416 . 6 November 2019 . R. Gibson . Dublin.
  9. Book: The spirit of Irish wit, or Post-chaise companion . 1812 . Thomas Tegg . London . 225 . https://books.google.com/books?id=e65bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA225 . 28 November 2019 . The Kilkenny Cats.
  10. Book: Daniel, William Barker . Supplement to the Rural Sports . 1813 . By T. Davidson for B. & R. Crosby . London . 701–702 . 1st, with subscribers' list . https://books.google.com/books?id=no0CAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA701 . 27 November 2019 . Hare and Hare-hunting.
  11. Book: Gilliland, Thomas . The Trap, a Moral, Philosophical, and Satirical Work, delineating the Snares in which Kings, Princes, and their Subjects have been caught since the days of Adam; including Reflections on the Present Causes of Conjugal Infidelity. Dedicated to the Ladies . Chapter V . 1808 . London . T. Goddard . 960061346.
    quoted in Review of The Trap . The Satirist: Or Monthly Meteor . December 1808 . III . London . Samuel Tipper . 538 . 28 November 2019.
  12. Book: The Chaplet of Comus; or Feast of Sentiment, and Festival of Wit . 1811 . Boston . 58 . 29 November 2019.
  13. Book: Additional thoughts of a barrister, to those of the Rev. Mr. O'Callaghan, on the dangerous tendency of Bible societies . 1816 . 54 . Dublin . 6 November 2019.
  14. Book: Lascelles, Rowley . Letters of Yorick; or, A good-humoured remonstrance in favour of the established Church, by a very humble member of it . 1817 . 289–290 . https://books.google.com/books?id=5O8CAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA289 . 6 November 2019 . A Digression upon the "Additional Thoughts of a Barrister," to those of the Rev. Mr. Callaghan.
  15. Neal . John . John Neal (writer) . Story-Telling . The New-England Magazine . January 1835 . VIII . I . 1–12: 4–5 . 13 November 2019.
    reprinted in Neal . John . Lang . Hans Joachim . Richards . Irving T. . Critical Essays and Stories by John Neal. Edited, with an Introduction, by Hans-Joachim Lang. With a Note on the Authorship of "David Whicher" and a Bibliography of John Neal by Irving T. Richards . Jahrbuch für Amerikastudien . 41155013 . 1962 . 7 . 204–319: 210–219: 213 . 0075-2533.
  16. Book: Miller, Joe . Joe Miller's jests. With copious additions . 1836 . Whittaker . London . 135, No.794 . Joe Miller kilkenny cat. . 8 November 2019.
  17. Book: Hook, Theodore Edward . Jack Brag . 1837 . R. Bentley . III . 97 . 11 November 2019.
  18. Prim . John G.A. . The Kilkenny Cats . The Athenaeum: Journal of Literature, Science, the Fine Arts, Music and the Drama . 11 January 1868 . 2098 . 58 . 6 November 2019.
  19. Book: O'Regan, William . Memoirs of the Legal, Literary, and Political Life of the Late the Right Honourable John Philpot Curran, once Master of the Rolls in Ireland . 36–38 . London . 1817 . James Harper and Richard Milliken.
  20. Book: Megarry, Robert . Garner . Bryan A. . A New Miscellany-at-Law: Yet Another Diversion for Lawyers and Others . 2005 . Bloomsbury Publishing . 978-1-84731-090-3 . 303 . 3 December 2019.
  21. Book: Egan . Pierce . Pierce Egan . Real life in Ireland : or, The day and night scenes, rovings, rambles, and sprees, bulls, blunders, bodderation and blarney, of Brian Boru, esq., and his elegant friend Sir Shawn O'Dogherty; exhibiting a real picture of characters, manners, etc., in high and low life in Dublin and various parts of Ireland, embellished with humorous coloured engravings, from original designs by the most eminent artists . 1821 . 1904 . Methuen . London . 38–39 . 7 November 2019.
  22. Book: Stanley . Jacob . Dialogues on Popery . 1830 . John Mason . London . 79 . https://books.google.com/books?id=mZZJiz7vwAgC&pg=PA79 . 27 November 2019 . Transubstantiation.
  23. Redmond . S. . Great Battle of Cats . Notes and Queries . 13 February 1864 . s3 v5 . 111 . 133–134 . 10.1093/nq/s3-V.111.133d . 22 November 2019.
  24. Book: Walsh, William S. . A Handy Book of Curious Information . 1912 . J. B. Lippincott . 585.
  25. Book: Ross, Charles H. . The Book of Cats . 21 September 2013 . 1867 . Project Gutenberg . 200–202 . 6 November 2019.
  26. Swayne . George Carless . The Battle of the Cats . Once a Week . 5 September 1863 . 9 . 219 . 302–308 . 13 November 2019 . London.
  27. Book: O'Hanlon . John . Irish local legends . 1896 . Duffy . Dublin . 100–104 . https://archive.org/details/irishlocallegend00ohan/page/100 . 12 November 2019 . XXVI: The Battle of the Cats.
  28. Web site: Hughes . Michael G. . Mc Cabe . Barney . Rossinver NS material . dúchas.ie . 13 November 2019 . 275–282.
  29. Book: Poe, Edgar Allan . The Annotated Poe . 2015 . Harvard University Press . 9780674055292 . 142, note 19 . Why the Little Frenchman wears his Arm in a Sling . 11 November 2019.
  30. Book: Craigie . W.A. . Oxford . A new English dictionary on historical principles : founded mainly on the materials collected by the Philological Society : Introduction, Supplement, and Bibliography . 1933 . Oxford Clarendon Press . 533 . "Kilkenny" . https://archive.org/details/newenglishdictio00murruoft/page/533 . 13 November 2019.
  31. Book: Murray, James . A New English Dictionary On Historical Principles . cat sb.1 sense 13 f. . https://archive.org/stream/ANewEnglishDictionaryOnHistoricalPrinciples.10VolumesWithSupplement/02.NEDHP.C.Oxford.Murray.1888..#page/n166 . Clarendon Press . Oxford . 2: C . 1888 . 167 . 6 November 2019.
  32. News: Wasp and Avon — From a London Paper . 20 November 2019 . Niles' Weekly Register . 10 December 1814 . 216 . The account of the battle between the two "Kilkenny cats," in which they fought until they eat up every thing but the tips of each other's tail, may be regarded a pretty moderate story when such a one as the following is gravely inserted..
  33. Book: Buccleuch, Charles Montagu-Scott, 4th Duke of . Charles Montagu-Scott, 4th Duke of Buccleuch . The private letter-books of Sir Walter Scott; selections from the Abbotsford manuscripts . Wilfred . Partington . 1930 . Frederick A. Stokes . New York . https://archive.org/details/privateletterboo0000scot/page/286 . 286 . registration . The Poem on Darkness is a mighty strange one. ... I was vastly amused with the two surviving gentlemen who stare at one another till they drop down dead. I think it beats the story of the Kilkenny Cats . Internet Archive . 20 November 2019 . Decr. 16th, 1816..
  34. Book: An Address to that Quarterly Reviewer who Touched Upon Mr. Leigh Hunt's "Story of Rimini" . 1816 . R. Jennings . 23 . 10 November 2019.
  35. Web site: Shakespeare . William . Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene 1 . . 10 November 2019 . Nay, an there were two such, we should have none / shortly, for one would kill the other..
  36. Foreign articles . 29 November 2019 . Niles' Weekly Reister . 13 [ns 1] . 1 . 12 . 30 August 1817.
  37. Book: Napier, William Francis Patrick . The Life and Opinions of General Sir Charles James Napier, G.C.B. . 1857 . London . . 9781108027205 . 329 . I . 11 November 2019.
  38. John Bull and the Dutchman . . W. Strange . 24 November 1832 . 1 . 51 . 201 . 10 November 2019 . London . If Leopold and William cannot agree, let them fight it out between themselves, even should they carry on the war till both are reduced to the condition of the far famed Kilkenny cats, one of whom came off with his head, and to the other of whom a tail only remained at the conclusion of the contest..
  39. Web site: Darwin . Charles . Charles Darwin . To Caroline Darwin . Darwin Correspondence Project . 10 November 2019 . 23 October 1833 . I wish the confounded revolution gentlemen would, like Kilkenny Cats, fight till nothing but the tails are left..
  40. Web site: Berryman . Clifford Kennedy . A modern version of the Kilkenny Cats . Library of Congress . 13 November 2019 . 29 June 1941.
  41. Book: Marx . Karl . Engels . Friedrich . The German Ideology . Collected Works . 5 . 2010 . 105–107: 106 . https://archive.org/stream/MarxEngelsCollectedWorksVolume10MKarlMarx/Marx%20%26%20Engels%20Collected%20Works%20Volume%205_%20Ma%20-%20Karl%20Marx#page/n128/ . 11 November 2019 . I.II.2. Saint Bruno's Views on the Struggle between Feuerbach and Stirner . Lawrence & Wishart.
  42. Wakley . Thomas . Thomas Wakley . Advertisement . The Lancet . 6 October 1827 . 9 [1] . 214 . 4 . J. Onwhyn . London . 10.1016/S0140-6736(02)96957-6.
  43. Jerdan . William . Workman . William Ring . Morley . John . Goodwin . Charles Wycliffe . Arnold . Frederick . Drama . The Literary Gazette . 16 December 1827 . 569 . 812 . London . 6 November 2019 . H. Colburn.
  44. Book: Maxwell, John Gary . The Civil War Years in Utah: The Kingdom of God and the Territory That Did Not Fight . University of Oklahoma Press . 2016 . xii . 7 November 2019 . 9780806155289.
  45. Book: Meade, [Gen.] George Gordon . George Meade . Meade . [Col.] George . Meade . George Gordon . The life and letters of George Gordon Meade, major-general United States army . 1913 . Scribner . New York . 230 . 1 . https://archive.org/details/lifelettersofge01mead/page/230 . 11 November 2019 . To Mrs. George G. Meade: Camp Pierpont, Va., November 24, 1861 . In other words, to use my familiar expression, it was and is a Kilkenny-cat business, in which the North, being the biggest cat and having the largest tail, ought to have the endurance to maintain the contest after the Southern gentleman was all gone..
  46. Book: Smith, Joseph . Joseph Smith . Roberts . B.H. . History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . Period I Volume 5 . 1909 . Deseret News . Salt Lake City, UT . 470 . 25 November 2019.
  47. News: Settle . Michael . Dewar turfs out tales of Kilkenny cat fights . The Herald . 26 July 1999 . Glasgow . 6.
  48. News: Mahapatra . Dhananjay . Stepped in to save CBI from 'Kilkenny cat fight': Centre . The Times of India . 6 December 2018 . New Delhi . 1.
  49. News: Burns . John . The tail of Kilkenny's fighting cats puzzles India . Sunday Times [Irish edition] . 16 Dec 2018 . London . 24.
  50. Book: Corwin, Thomas . Thomas Corwin . XIII . Washington, DC . Debates in Congress . 12 January 1837 . Gales & Seaton . c.1375 . y . 13 November 2019.
  51. Book: Carlyle, Thomas . Thomas Carlyle . The French Revolution . Chapter 1.6.I. Make the Constitution. . http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1301/1301-h/1301-h.htm#link2HCH0035 . Project Gutenberg . 1837 . 2 November 2019 . 10 November 2019.
  52. Book: Grant, James . James Grant (newspaper editor) . The bench and the bar . 1837 . Henry Colburn . London . I . 42 . 13 November 2019.
    Book: Grant, James . Joseph Jenkins, Or, Leaves from the Life of a Literary Man . 1843 . Saunders and Otley . II . 151–153 . https://books.google.com/books?id=jKPJTj22GtgC&pg=PA152 . 13 November 2019 . The Hatters of High Holborn. ; Gerlis . S . Talking Shop: Costs and the Kilkenny Cats . Family Law . Bristol . Jordans . 2001 . 31 . 699–700 . 0014-7281.
  53. Book: Foster, R.F. . Paddy and Mr. Punch: Connections in Irish and English History . Penguin . 1995 . 186 . 978-0-14-017170-9.
  54. Web site: The Kilkenny Cats; or, old and young Ireland "Coming to the Scratch." . catalogue.nli.ie . 6 November 2019 . 8 August 1846.
    Book: Spielmann, Marion Harry . The history of "Punch" . 1895 . Cassell . London . 105 .
  55. Kilkenny Cats . Punch . 26 October 1878 . 75 . 192 . 13 November 2019 . Punch Publications Limited.
  56. Book: Baden-Powell, George . The saving of Ireland: industrial, financial, political . 1898 . W. Blackwood . Edinburgh . 50 . 11 November 2019.
  57. About Certain Eligible Cases of Mutual Extermination; a Cue from Shakspeare . Francis . Jacox . Bentley's Miscellany . 57 . London . 1865 . Chapman and Hall . 3 December 2019 . 484–491.
  58. M. Tx. . de Rash . Carle . Les chats de Kilkenny . L'Intermédiaire des Chercheurs et Curieux . Paris . L . 1052 . 385 . 20 September 1904 . 30 November 2019 . fr . Gallica.
  59. P.L. . de Rash . Carle . Les chats de Kilkenny . L'Intermédiaire des Chercheurs et Curieux . Paris . L . 1054 . 525 . 10 October 1904 . 30 November 2019 . fr . Gallica.
  60. Book: Geiger, Till . Britain and the economic problem of the Cold War: the political economy and the economic impact of the British defence effort, 1945-1955 . 2017 . Routledge . 9781315261348 . https://books.google.com/books?id=hTUrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA98 . 10.4324/9781315261348 . ‘Tied to the tail of a Kilkenny cat'?: The Anglo-American relationship, British rearmament and the political crisis of 1951 . 87–120: 98 . 2004.
  61. Bleecker . Anthony . Jeu D'Esprit . Dumfries Monthly Magazine . July 1825 . 77 . 6 November 2019 . 1 . 1.
  62. Book: Galt, John . John Galt (novelist) . The Last of the Lairds: Or, The Life and Opinions of Malachi Mailings, Esq. of Auldbiggings . 1826 . William Blackwood . Edinburgh . 139 . 7 November 2019.
  63. Book: Poe, Edgar Allan . Mabbott . Thomas Ollive . Kewer . Eleanor D. . Tales and Sketches; Volume 1: 1831–1842 . 2000 . Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling . University of Illinois Press . 9780252069222 . xxix, 462–471: 468 . https://books.google.com/books?id=g33tFaUbpIMC&pg=PA468 . 7 November 2019.
  64. "Geoffrey" [George Lippard] . George Lippard . The Spermaceti Papers: The Grey Ham in a Pucker . Philadelphia, PA . The Citizen Soldier . 26 July 1843 . 15 November 2019 . The Early Writings of George Lippard, 1842-43, UCLA.
  65. Book: Ward, Leo Richard . God in an Irish kitchen . 1939 . Sheed & Ward . New York . 32.
  66. News: Schoolgirl fight: 15-year-old charged . 7 November 2019 . . 28 May 2009.
  67. Book: Share, Bernard . Naming names: who, what, where in Irish nomenclature . 2001 . Gill & Macmillan . 112, 164.
    News: Kilkenny 5-13 Wexford 3-15 . 20 June 1983 . 14 . . Michael . Ellard. ; News: Kilkenny power to fine victory . 10 February 1986 . 18 . Irish Press. ; Book: Browne, Michael . Up the bridge: a history of Clarinbridge, its people and their games . 1987 . 19510868 . Clarinbridge, Co. Galway, Ireland . 109 . Mattie Burke . In the 1935 Championship it was Kilkenny's turn again and Mattie Burke's second of three All-Ireland semi-finals against the 'Cats'.. ; News: Cats are purring . 22 June 1987 . 10 . Irish Independent. ; News: Late Kilkenny effort tells . 2 May 1988 . 10 . Irish Independent.
  68. News: Clayton . Richard S. . Names are 'Cultural Storage Chests,' but Sometimes Barriers . . 8 November 1998 . Vancouver, WA . A12.
  69. Book: Walsh, William Shepard . Handy-book of Literary Curiosities . Kilkenny cats . https://archive.org/details/handybooklitera04walsgoog/page/n588 . J.B. Lippincott Company . 1892 . 1909 . 585 . 6 November 2019.
  70. Web site: Tréguer . Pascal . The nonsensical origin of 'Kilkenny cats' . Word Histories . 28 November 2019 . 6 January 2017.
  71. Prim . John G.A. . The Kilkenny Cats . Notes and Queries . 29 June 1850 . 10.1093/nq/s1-II.35.71a . s1 v2 . 35 . 71 . 6 November 2019 . Oxford University Press.
  72. R. . The Cautious Man; A sketch . La Belle Assemblée; or, Bell's Court and Fashionable Magazine . January 1823 . s.2 XXVII . 170 . 22 . 29 November 2019 . there was no more left of them than Curran described to have remained of the Kilkenny cats.
  73. Book: Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc comte de . Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon . Histoire naturelle, générale et particuliére . 7: Quadrupeds . 1758 . L'Imprimerie royale . 330 . https://books.google.com/books?id=4c5CAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA330 . fr . Le Mulot.
    Book: Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc comte de . Barr's Buffon. Buffon's Natural History . VI . 1792 . J.S. Barr . London . 219 . https://books.google.com/books?id=8SUOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA219 . The Field-Mouse . 19 November 2019.
  74. https://chancery.tcd.ie/roll/51-Edward-III/close#node-51653 Rot. Claus. 51 Ed. III. 78
  75. Prim . John G. A. . The Corporation Insignia and Olden Civic State of Kilkenny . 25506583 . The Journal of the Royal Historical and Archaeological Association of Ireland . 1870 . 1 . 1 . 280–305 . 0790-6382.
  76. Book: Graves . James . Prim . John G. Augustus . The History, Architecture, and Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of St. Canice, Kilkenny . 1857 . Hodges, Smith . Dublin . 319 . 9 December 2019.
  77. Ward . C.A. . Kilkenny Cats . Notes & Queries . 129 . s7 v9 . 268 . 10.1093/nq/s7-XI.268.129d . 14 February 1891 . 6 November 2019.
  78. News: Calendar of Ormond Deeds; The "Kilkenny Cats" Legend . Kilkenny People . 27 November 1943 . 5.
    Book: Curtis . Edmund . William Eleroy Curtis . Calendar of Ormond Deeds . VI: 1584–1603 . 1943 . Irish Manuscripts Commission . 97–99 . 121. The Liberties of Irishtown, Kilkenny . http://www.irishmanuscripts.ie/servlet/Controller?action=digitisation_backlist . 25 November 2019.
  79. Book: The New International Encyclopedia . 1903 . Dodd, Mead . New York . 691 . X . https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015053670355&view=1up&seq=751 . 20 November 2019 . Kilkenny.
  80. Book: Craik . Henry . The life of Jonathan Swift, dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin . 1894 . Macmillan . London . 13–14 . 19 November 2019.
  81. Web site: Constituencies: St Canice or Irishtown . History of the Irish Parliament . Ulster Historical Foundation . 19 November 2019.
  82. Book: McGee . Thomas D'Arcy . A history of the attempts to establish the Protestant Reformation in Ireland and the successful resistance of that people . 1853 . Patrick Donahoe . Boston . 119 . 978-0-665-48633-3 . 19 November 2019.
  83. Book: Esson, Denis Main Ross . The Curse of Cromwell: A History of the Ironside Conquest of Ireland, 1649–53 . 1971 . Leo Cooper . London . 9780850520668 . 79 . In February 1647 another General Assembly was convoked at Kilkenny, but the disputes were now beyond composition, and the meetings were so disorderly that the expression "quarrelling like Kilkenny cats" has passed into the English language.
    Book: Kloak, Andrew M. . Ring . Trudy . Watson . Noelle . Schellinger . Paul . Northern Europe . International Dictionary of Historic Places . 2 . 2013 . Routledge . 9781136639449 . 374–377: 376 . https://books.google.com/books?id=yfPYAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA376 . 12 November 2019 . Kilkenny (Kilkenny, Ireland).
  84. Juverna . Kilkenny Cats . Notes and Queries . 28 May 1864 . s3 v5 . 126 . 10.1093/nq/s3-V.126.433a . 433 . Oxford University Press.
  85. [Review] The Book of Cats ]. The Athenæum . 28 December 1867 . 2096 . 888–889 . 6 November 2019.
  86. Book: Curtis . William Eleroy . One Irish Summer . 9 October 2013 . 1908 . Project Gutenberg . 325 . 6 November 2019.
  87. Book: Chambers's Encyclopaedia . 1950 . Oxford University Press . 217 . 8 . Kilkenny.
  88. Book: Harris, Richard W. . Not So Humdrum: The Autobiography of a Civil Servant . 1939 . John Lane . 81.
  89. Book: O'Connor, Joseph . Hostage to fortune . 1951 . M. F. Moynihan . Dublin . 18 . It was Matt who first told us of the Kilkenny cats, which the Earl of Ormond's jester, in a fit of jealousy, tied together by the tails and flung over a clothes-line 'to fight it out'.
  90. Book: Gilbert, Sir John Thomas . History of the Viceroys of Ireland: With Notices of the Castle of Dublin and Its Chief Occupants in Former Times . 1865 . J. Duffy . 535 . 11 November 2019.
  91. Book: Clarke, Austin . Austin Clarke (poet) . Flight to Africa: And Other Poems . 1963 . Dolmen Press . 70.
  92. Book: Sheehy, Terence . Journey through Ireland . 1986 . Gallery Books . 9780831752613 . 30 . Dunmore Cave.
  93. Praeger . R. Lloyd . Derc-Ferna: The Cave of Dunmore . 25524777 . The Irish Naturalist . 1918 . 27 . 10/11 . 148–158 . 2009-2598.
  94. Book: Joyce, Patrick Weston . A social history of ancient Ireland . 1903 . Longmans, Green . London . 476 . 7 November 2019.
  95. O'Looney . Brian . On Ancient Historic Tales in the Irish Language . Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy . 1879 . 15 [s2 v1 Pol Lit & Antiq] . 11 . 215–250: 224 . Dublin.
  96. Book: Russell, Thomas O'Neill . Fíor chláirseach na h-Eireann; or, The true harp of Erin . 1900 . Gill . Dublin . 118–128: 125 IV; 127 n.1,2 . https://archive.org/details/forchlirseac00russ/page/125 . 7 November 2019 . Irish, en . Appendix.
  97. Dobbs . Margaret E. . On the graves of Leinster men . Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie . 1954 . 24 . 139–153 . 164190954 . 10.1515/zcph.1954.24.1.139.
  98. Book: MacKillop, James . Luchtigern . A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology . Oxford Reference . 10.1093/acref/9780198609674.001.0001 . https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100117789 . 305 . 978-0198804840 . 2016 . 2004 . 2nd . subscription.
  99. Hore . Herbert F. . Herbert F. Hore . Notice of a Rare Book, Entitled, "Beware the Cat" . 25502563?seq=2 . The Journal of the Kilkenny and South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society . 1859 . 2 . 2 . 310–312: 311, fn.1 . In the absence of information it may, perhaps, be allowable to guess that this effusion might give some clue to the origin of the story of the world-famous "Kilkenny Cats," who ate each other to the tails! The first promulgator of this remarkable battle of the cats has never, that we are aware of, been traced. . 6 November 2019 . 0790-6366.
  100. Malcomson . Robert . Graves . James . Notice of a Book Entitled "Beware the Cat" . 25497783 . The Journal of the Historical and Archaeological Association of Ireland . 1868 . 1 . 1 . 187–192 . 0790-6374.
    Book: Baldwin, William . Beware the Cat . 30 July 2010 . 1584 . Presscom . 7 November 2019.
  101. Book: Brewer, E. Cobham . Dictionary of Phrase & Fable . 1898 . Henry Altemus Company . Bartleby.com . Philadelphia, PA . https://www.bartleby.com/81/3165.html . 19 November 2019 . Cat Proverbs.
  102. Kilkenny (city) . 15 . 793–794; see final para . The origin of the expression "to fight like Kilkenny cats....has been the subject of many conjectures.....
  103. Web site: Quinion . Michael . Fight like Kilkenny cats . World Wide Words . 8 November 2019 . en-GB . 3 January 2004.
  104. Book: Funk, Charles Earle . 1948 . Internet Archive . A hog on ice and other curious expressions . 1985 . Harper & Row . New York . 149–150 . 0-06-091259-6 . 6 December 2019 . registration.
  105. Book: Dolan, Terence Patrick . A Dictionary of Hiberno-English: The Irish Use of English . Gill and Macmillan . 2nd . 2006 . 46 . 6 December 2019 . 978-0-7171-4039-8.
  106. Book: Partridge, Eric . Eric Partridge . Name into word; proper names that have become common property; a discursive dictionary . 1950 . Macmillan . New York . 570–571 . 6 December 2019 . registration . Internet Archive.
  107. Book: Cashman . Seamus . Gaffney . Sean . Irish Proverbs & Sayings . 2 March 2015 . 1974 . O'Brien Press . 978-1847177421 . 38 No. 350.
  108. Book: De Gubernatis, Angelo . Zoological Mythology . II . 5 September 2012 . 1872 . Project Gutenberg . 64 . 10 November 2019.
  109. Book: Conway, Moncure Daniel . Moncure D. Conway . Demonology and Devil-lore . 1879 . Project Gutenberg . 6 September 2012 . 130–131 . 10 November 2019.
  110. Book: Van Vechten, Carl . Carl Van Vechten . The Tiger in the House . 1922 . Bartleby . note 4 . y . https://www.bartleby.com/234/5.html#note4 . 10 November 2019 . Chapter Five. The Cat in Folklore..
  111. R.C. . The Kilkenny cats . Notes and Queries . 17 January 1874 . s.5 v.1 . 3 . 46 . 10.1093/nq/s5-I.3.46d.
    citing Book: Brodeau, Jean . Epigrammatum Graecorum . VII . 1600 . Wechel . Frankfurt . 227 . 20 November 2019 . el, la. ; translation from Book: Paton, William Roger . Greek Anthology IV . 1918 . Loeb Classical Library . 85 . 238–239 . 20 November 2019 . el, en . Book 11: Convivial & Satirical Epigrams; No.357—Palladas . https://www.loebclassics.com/view/greek_anthology_11/1918/pb_LCL085.239.xml.
  112. Book: Taylor, Archer . The Proverb . 1931 . 131 . 192 . Harvard University Press.
  113. News: The Story of the Confederates . Icelandic Saga Database . Sveinbjorn Thordarson . 11 November 2019 . Chapter 10 . y . 1882 . John . Coles.
  114. Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh as Craftsman and Trickster . James E. . Doan . Béaloideas . 50 . 1982 . 54–89: 60 . Folklore of Ireland Society . 20522186 . 10.2307/20522186.
  115. Web site: Mrs Maher . collected by Alice Mullan . The Kilkenny Cats . The Schools’ Collection . 11 November 2019 . Ballydaniel . 11 January 1939.
  116. Web site: Quinn . Edward . Hurling and Football Matches . The Schools’ Collection . 11 November 2019.
  117. Book: Brown, Marshall . Sayings that Never Grow Old: Wit and Humour of Well-known Quotations . Kilkenny Cats . https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x000364192&view=1up&seq=175 . 24 November 2019 . 1918 . Small, Maynard . 145.
    Book: Woods, Ralph Louis . A treasury of the familiar . 1942 . Macmillan . New York . 682 . https://archive.org/details/treasuryoffamili00wood/page/682 . registration . 26 November 2019 . The Kilkenny Cats.
  118. Book: Wren, Christopher S. . The Cat Who Covered the World: The Adventures Of Henrietta And Her Foreign Correspondent . 2001 . Simon and Schuster . 978-0-7432-2276-1 . 70 . registration . 21 November 2019 . a familiar limerick.
  119. Nebulae . . HathiTrust . November 1867 . 4 . 878–884: 881–883 . 8 November 2019 . . New York.
  120. Drama . Harper's Weekly . John . Corbin . 4 February 1899 . 43 . 2198 . New York . 115 . 24 November 2019.
    Book: Webster . Noah . Noah Webster . Russell . Thomas Herbert . Webster's reliable dictionary for home, school and office . 1911 . Saalfield . Akron, OH . https://archive.org/details/webstersreliable00webs/page/118 . 24 November 2019 . Familiar Allusions. ; Book: Brewton . Sara Westbrook . Brewton . John Edmund . Fetz . Ingrid . Laughable limericks . 1965 . Crowell . New York . 19 . registration. Internet Archive . 24 November 2019. ; Book: Butler, Tony . Best Irish limericks . 1970 . Wolfe . London . The Mini Ha-Ha Joke Books . 35 . registration . 24 November 2019 . 0723401675. ; Book: Lancelyn Green, Roger . Roger Lancelyn Green . A century of humorous verse, 1850–1950 . 1973 . . 813 . Dutton . New York . 0460008137 . 287 . https://archive.org/details/centuryofhumorou00roge/page/287 . registration . Limericks . ; Book: Harrowven, Jean . The limerick makers . 2004 . 1976 . Borrowdale Press . 978-0-9540349-3-1 . 56. ; Book: Saltman, Judith . The Riverside Anthology of Children's Literature . 1985 . Houghton Mifflin . 978-0-395-35773-6 . 75 No. 22.
  121. Book: Baring-Gould . William Stuart . William S. Baring-Gould . Baring-Gould . Cecil . The annotated Mother Goose: nursery rhymes old and new . 1962 . Bramhall House . New York . 315 . registration . Internet Archive . 23 November 2019.
    Book: 1905 . Bailey . Carolyn Sherwin . Newell . Peter . The Peter Newell Mother Goose; the old rhymes reproduced in connection with their veracious history . H. Holt . New York . 145 . 24 November 2019. ; Book: Betts, Ethel Franklin . 1909 . The complete Mother Goose . A. Stokes . New York . 92 . 24 November 2019. ; Book: Johnson, Clifton . 1911 . Mother Goose rhymes . Baker & Taylor . New York . 150 . https://archive.org/details/mothergooserhyme00john/page/150 . 24 November 2019 . The Kilkenny Cats. ; Book: Rackham, Arthur . 1913 . Mother Goose: the old nursery rhymes . Century . New York . 226 . 23 November 2019. ; Book: 1920 . Smith . Elmer Boyd . Elmendorf . Lawrence . The Boyd Smith Mother Goose . G.P. Putnam's Sons . New York . 44 . https://archive.org/details/boydsmithmothergsmit/page/44 . 23 November 2019 . There Were Two Cats. ; Book: Wright, Blanche Fisher . The Real Mother Goose . April 1991 . Checkerboard Press . New York . 87 . https://archive.org/details/realmothergoose00blan/page/87 . 1-56288-041-1 . 1944 . 23 November 2019 . The Kilkenny Cats .
  122. Book: Parker . Horatio W. (Horatio William) . McConathy . Osbourne . Birge . Edward B. (Edward Bailey) . Miessner . W. Otto (William Otto) . Teacher's manual for the Progressive music series . 1918 . Dept. of State Printing . Sacramento, CA . 79, 1 287 . 26 November 2019.
  123. Book: Berger, Jean . There were two cats at Kilkenny . Airs and Rounds . 43255859 . 1966 . Broude Bros. . BB 4054.
  124. Book: Walker, James Barr . Poetry of reason and conscience. Immortality and worth of the soul: Ten scenes in the life of a lady of fashion; and miscellaneous pieces . 1871 . H. A. Sumner . Chicago . 208–209 . https://archive.org/details/poetryofreasonco00walk/page/208 . 24 November 2019 . The Kilkenny Cats –– Expanded.
  125. Book: Mack, Ebenezer . The Cat-Fight; a Mock Heroic Poem, Supported with Copious Extracts from Ancient and Modern Classic Authors . 1824 . New York . 13–142 [''esp.'' 115–135] . https://books.google.com/books?id=f6pcAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA115 . 27 November 2019 . The Cat-Fight.
    The Review: The Cat-Fight . New-York Mirror, and Ladies' Literary Gazette . 30 October 1824 . II . 14 . 110–111 . 27 November 2019 . G. P. Morris.
  126. Book: C.B. . The Terrific Legend Of The Kilkenny Cats . https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47400/47400-h/47400-h.htm#LEGEND_OF_THE_KILKENNY_CATS . Cruikshank . George . George Cruikshank . Omnibus . 1841 . 128 . Project Gutenberg . 6 November 2019.
  127. Web site: Lee . Benny . The Stargazers . Nat Temple and His Orchestra . Kay . Barry . Kilkenny Cats . London . 20 November 2019 . 1951.
  128. Book: Graves . Alfred Perceval . Stanford . Charles Villiers . Irish Songs and Ballads . 1893 . Novello, Ewer . London . 73–76 . https://archive.org/details/irishsongsandba00stangoog/page/n90 . 20 November 2019 . The Kilkenny Cats.
  129. Web site: Doone . Allen . The Kilkenny cats [music] ]. nla.gov.au . 20 November 2019.
  130. Book: Fuller, Harvey Austin . Downey . John Florin . Trimsharp's account of himself: a sketch of his life, together with a brief history of the education of the blind, and their achievements, to which is added a collection of poems composed by himself . 1999 . 1873 . American Verse Project . University of Michigan . 125–126 . https://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/amverse/BAR7162.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext#P123 . 7 November 2019 . The Kilkenny Legend.
  131. Book: Huber, Anne L. . The nursery rattle for little folks . Philadelphia, PA . Claxton, Remsen, and Haffelfinger . 1873 . 90–91 . https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00026958/00001/102j . 11 November 2019 . The Kilkenny Cats.
    Book: Kilcup . Karen L. . Sorby . Angela . Over the River and Through the Wood: An Anthology of Nineteenth-Century American Children's Poetry . 2014 . JHU Press . 9781421411408 . 217 . 11 November 2019.
  132. Book: Scott, Laurence [W]infield . The Mooted Question, and other rhymes . 1880 . John Burns . St. Louis . 68–76 . https://archive.org/details/mootedquestionot00scot/page/68 . 26 November 2019 . The Kilkenny Cats.
  133. Book: Doyle, Charles Anthony . Character Sketches in Rhyme and Other Verses . 1911 . Western . San Francisco . 84–86 . https://archive.org/details/charactersketch00doylrich/page/n91 . 11 November 2019 . The Cats av Kilkenny.
  134. Web site: The Cat of Kilkenny; or, The Forest of Blarney . Eighteenth Century Drama: Censorship, Society and the Stage . Adam Matthew Digital . 20 November 2019.
  135. News: Henderson . John . Chess, cats and free-flowing beer . The Scotsman . ChessBase . 4 December 2019 . 6 December 2001.
    Web site: Ware . Gary Kevin . Get in Shape! . The United States Chess Federation . 4 December 2019 . 26 June 2008.
  136. Book: O'Brien, Karen . Toys & Prices 2006 . 2005 . KP Books . 9780896891524 . 290, 294.
  137. Mighty Mouse and the Kilkenny Cats . 0m36s . April 1945 . 20th Century Fox . Terrytoons.
    Recommended Shorts; Cartoons and Comedies . New Movies . June 1945 . 15 . 20 November 2019 . National Board of Review of Motion Pictures . XX . 5 . New York.
  138. Monagle 2010, pp.93, 94, 105
  139. Book: Nye, Robert . Falstaff . 2012 . Allison & Busby . 9780749012250 . https://books.google.com/books?id=zCCKAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT243 . 20 November 2019 . Mr Robert Shallow v Mr Sampson Stockfish.
  140. Book: Roesgen, Jeffrey T. . The Pogues' Rum, Sodomy and the Lash . 2008 . Bloomsbury Academic . 978-1-4411-0570-7 . https://books.google.com/books?id=8BJTbN-cfdQC&pg=PT21 . 23 November 2019 . 33 1/3 . The Wild Cats of Kilkenny.
  141. Mills . Mike . Mike Mills . Our Town . Spin . July 1985 . 1 . 3 . 21–23 . 22 November 2019 . SPIN Media LLC.
    News: Maslin . Janet . Janet Maslin . 'Athens, Ga.,' on Rock Bands . C14 . 22 November 2019 . . 29 May 1987. ; Book: Unterberger . Richie . Hicks . Samb . Music USA: The Rough Guide . 1999 . Rough Guides . 978-1-85828-421-7 . 140 . registration . 22 November 2019. ; Jipson . Arthur . Why Athens? Investigations into the site of an American music revolution . Popular Music and Society . 24 July 2008 . 18 . 3 . 19–31: 19 . 10.1080/03007769408591561 . PDF.
  142. Monagle 2010, p.185
  143. Monagle 2010, pp.17, 196
  144. News: Hogan . Senan . Feline stamps are the cat's meow . 12 November 2019 . . 7 September 2007 .
    Celtic Cats . Collectors News . April 2007 . 19 . 12 . Irish Stamps . 12 November 2019 . 4 February 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190204054728/http://www.irishstamps.ie/IrishStamps/downloads/CollectorsNewsIssue19.pdf#page=12 . dead .
  145. News: Keane . Sean . Kilkenny film 'Two Cats' premieres at Kerry Film Festival . 12 November 2019 . Kilkenny People . 11 October 2018 . subscription.
  146. Άναγκη . The Westminster Review . August 1843 . J.M. Mason . 40–53 . Lope de Vega's Gatomachia. 12 November 2019 .
  147. Book: Hehir, Brendan O. . Harmony from Discords: A Life of Sir John Denham . 1968 . University of California Press . 265 . registration . 26 November 2019.
  148. Book: Sir J. D. . Famous battel of the catts, in the province of Ulster, June 25, 1668 . 1668 . EEBO . T. Newcomb . The Savoy, London . 12 November 2019.

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