The adventures in rural HEMA continue. Preparations for the second leg of the 2024 IHFL are underway at the Wrathful Peasants, and I got my first little lesson in rapier. Hold tight the action is about to get…. fairly low key and mellow, actually.  Tournaments, and what to get from them On Saturday 20th of April, the Blademasters’ Academy, my choice of apostrophe placement there, are holding the second leg of the Irish Historical Longsword League down in Cork and the Peasants are sending a few members to take part (and bring back a prize if they want to show their faces around these parts ..read more

A triumphal return is nothing without a follow up. This week I am going to give you a look at the goings on inside my head (like, in a cognitive way, not in terms of squidgy tissues and neurotransmitters squirting all over the shop). I have started looking at rapier fencing, and I have some thoughts on club expansion and rampant consumerism. New Sword Joy As you saw, last week we got two new Rapiers from the beleaguered HF Armoury. We had previously handled their ARA Rapier and whilst it seemed OK for €130 it wasn’t exactly lighting us on fire. I want(ed, more on this later) to do the Spanish ..read more

There’s not even much point saying it, but it has been a hell of while since I last posted on this blog. Let’s unpack a little bit.  If you look at the history of the blog, I was getting all consistent and regular in 2018 & 2019. Then in 2020 we had that pesky pandy thing which put a pause on HEMA across the world (and hairdressers and tattooists and dining out and so on and so on). 2021 was a total no-show and in 2022 I did a few posts, mainly around events that I went to.  The events themselves were cool but I have to say it’s easier to write a review of an event than it is to ..read more

Wow, what a great event. See now you don’t HAVE to read the rest of this blog post. You know the most essential fact. However, if you would care to come with me on a journey into the cold dark heart of a holiday village on the south coast of Ireland I will explain to you just what made it such a good time. There’s not been many event going on recently for some reason, last couple of years it has been almost like we haven’t been allowed to travel, meet up and breath heavily in the company of of close, dear friends in HMA. In Ireland this year so far there have been a couple of tournaments which ..read more

This years IHFL is a bit shorter than it has been in past years, only two legs this year rather than the usual four. I went down to Cork a few weeks ago and this weekend saw the Peasants on the road again. This time to Dublin. Here’s my review of the day, I hope you enjoy it. Two Peasants fought at the Cork leg but this time there was going to be three of us. Big road trip planned! It’s an early start to get to Dublin for 10.30am but following a coffee before departure we were as bright eyed and bushy tailed as could be expected from adult human males in the first quarter of the 21st century ..read more

As I sit in smokey yurts made of bones and yak skin, surrounded by surprisingly ethnically diverse tribal elders, I am often asked “what is good in fencing?”. I am just as often (i.e. never) asked “what makes a good fencer?”. I touched on the question in my last post and it has being weighing on my mind ever since. In the last few days, during breaks from pushing a massive millstone around and around in the middle of the steppe, I have formed a few opinions. Here they are… Is ‘good’ something that exists in an objective sense? This is supposed to be a blog about Historical Martial Arts and I a ..read more

We have been back to fencing at the Wrathful Peasants for a few weeks now. Long enough to start a new cohort of beginners and really get stuck back into getting as much as we can out of the Historical Martial Arts. I even went to a Irish Historical Fencing League Event (IHFL) run by the wonderful Cork Blademasters last weekend. I thought I would write up a review as i am sure you are all desperate to hear about it. Before I get to that though I would like to thank the talented photographer @nokomistv for all the great shots that are in this post (and frankly in loads to come!). She has capture ..read more

WOW! Covid has been a weird force in our lives, in our working practices, our social lives and our attendance of swordsing clubs. For me it was like a hole was cut out of my life and nothing was put in its place. I spent a lot of the time sat on the sofa and almost none of it practicing longsword. Let’s take a look at what it has been like to come back. Over in Feakle we have been back at it for a few weeks now and somethings have changed and some are still the same. We still meet once a week on a Tuesday, turnout is hovering around the 5-6 mark and we mostly spar with Longswords and Sabres. S ..read more

As I mentioned in last week’s post I went to the Féile na Gaiscígh 2020 in Dublin at the end of last month. It’s a trip I have been making every year since I started doing HMA back in 2015. I have made it a major part of my calendar every year as I have always had a good time, met and stabbed cool people and enjoyed myself a lot. This year was a little different as I would be there with three other members of the club; equal record for the greatest number of Peasants at an event. Since I began my blog I have always reviewed the event, but this time I have been mentally putting it off. Up front ..read more

This may sound like the sort of thing that bad YouTubers and Instagram influencers say; but I have seriously been asked by several people lately “why aren’t you blogging anymore?” and “when will the new post on Wrathful Peasants be up?“.  The best answer is to actually make a post, so here it is. I have been busy else-wise, is the best way too describe the reason for not blogging. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that my job has become slowly (not that slowly) busier and busier in the last year, I’m living totally off-grid and this winter my batteries have not been full enough to use f ..read more