Fashionable Words: Donnybrook

When you go shirtless, you know it's getting serious.

[Sometimes words die out of fashion. But sometimes those words are good words, words with a certain appeal that can't be denied forever. Those words should be brought back into fashion, used frequently and used often. These are those words.]


Word:

donnybrook


Definition:  noun

A free-for-all, a melee, a brawl.


Origin:

Ireland has gotten by during its existence largely based on a handful of stereotypes that--to a degree--its citizenry generally accepts:
a.)  potatoes
b.)  Guinness
c.)  whiskey
d.)  shamrocks
e.)  fighting

No one can deny a quality potato-based meal, and the debate on alcohol begins and ends immediately with a simple "yes, please." Fighting, though, seems like a silly stereotype until you realize that donnybrook--which is about WWE-style fighting--has its origins in Ireland as well.

First and foremost, donnybrook the word comes from Donnybrook, a modern-day district of Dublin, no different than Harlem is a part of New York City. The district gets its name from the Irish language Domhnach Broc, meaning "The Church of Saint Broc." Little is known about Saint Broc except that she founded a convent or church in the early eighth century, a church/convent long lost. By the tenth century, Vikings were raiding Ireland and most likely sacked Saint Broc's creation. Today, only a cemetery in use from that time period remains.

Am I saying the word donnybrook somehow is connected to a saint? Yes...yes, I am.

Nowhere does it say you need a mustache to be involved in a donnybrook

In 1204, King John of England (better known as the king in the Robin Hood stories and brother of Richard the Lionhearted) granted the corporation of Dublin to hold an 8-day fair in the Donnybrook district. Within fifty years, it was lengthened to 15-days, and for the next 660+ years a fair was held in Donnybrook annually.

King John: Lover of fairs and creator of donnybrooks.

What started out as a peaceful, boring get together slowly built up over the decades. Fair-goers started drinking heavily. Small fights begot moderate fights begot sizable fights begot what became known as donnybrooks. Stunningly, large amounts of alcohol and personal quarrels led to massive brawls. I'm as stunned by this revelation as you.

Ireland embraced its stereotype of drinking and fighting, so much so that in a 1778 newspaper article one writer complained, "How irksome it was to friends of the industry and well-being of Society to hear that upwards of 50,000 persons visited the fair on the previous Sunday, and returned to the city like intoxicated savages." Someone sounds like a Negative Nancy.

How most modern-day donnybrooks slowly start out, with John Wayne (right) throwing down.

Eventually, some in the community banded together to create a committee to end the fair. It took decades (the fair had a license, and whoever owned the license could end the annual get-together), but the committee eventually bought the license and ended the Donnybrook Fair in 1866.

The fair might have ended, but the association with chaos lived on, and so did the word.


Most obscure UrbanDictionary.com definition of 'donnybrook':

4.)  The word that gives the Irish and the college sports programs the Irish reputation for brawling [...] (and the) end of a donnybrook usually results in missing teeth, lacerations to the head, scars, scrapes, and bruises to the body. If you ever hear of a donnybrook starting at the place you're in, either run, or participate and be prepared for all of the above flesh wounds the next morning.


Used in a sentence:

After drinking two cases of beer while tailgating, Tommy and his friends started arguing with another group of fans, and everyone ended up in a donnybrook, throwing punches and kicks at each other in the parking lot.


Why you should use 'donnybrook' in your everyday life:

Using donnybrook is as close as your tender life will ever get to the world of MMA.


Word Awesomeness Scale (1-to5):

Three

It also sounds like it could be a name you randomly picked from a telephone book--like a guy named Donny Brook, who owns a butcher shop but does a little light illegal gambling on the side.