June 29, 2016 | Leave a comment On a cold, wet night in February 1820, an intoxicated man staggered out of a Dublin bar and collapsed nearby. By the time the drenched and shivering man was discovered the following morning, he was in a bad way. Within a few days he was dead. So it was that pneumonia had claimed the life of Dan Donnelly, Ireland’s unbeaten heavyweight bare knuckle boxing champion. He was just 31 years of age. Supposedly born on 17 March 1788; St Patrick’s Day, Dan had sixteen siblings and was the son of a carpenter. Although brought up in relative poverty, he grew tall and strong, and at around six feet in height and approximately 200 pounds in weight, was a big man by the standards of the day. The majority of the population at that time were under nourished, and as a consequence tended to be much smaller and lighter than today. People of under five feet in height were not uncommon. As a young man, Dan gained a reputation as a formidable fist fighter. Stories were told of his heroics as a dispatcher of bullies, and protector of those less capable than himself. How much of this was true, is a matter for conjecture. Such tales would undoubtedly have served to embellish his growing reputation as a local hero, but there is no doubt that he was more than capable of taking care of himself. Donnelly’s first foray into the world of prize fighting came on 14th September 1814. The venue, was a natural amphitheatre known as Belcher’s Hollow, in County Kildare. His opponent was Tom Hall, an English boxer who was undertaking a tour of Ireland. Such was Dan’s burgeoning reputation, that an enormous crowd estimated at twenty thousand, gathered to watch the spectacle. To the delight of the partisan attendees, in round fifteen Donnelly was awarded the fight by the referee, with Hall refusing to continue. His next fight was against another Englishman, the hugely experienced George Cooper. This took place on 13th December 1815. The venue was the same as his first fight, but it had now been renamed Donnelly’s Hollow, in Dan’s honour. Cooper was outweighed by approximately twenty pounds, but used his experience to outfox his heavier opponent. However, Donnelly’s superior strength eventually told, and Cooper was knocked unconscious by a huge right hand punch in round eleven. His third, and what transpired to be his last fight, took place near London at a place called Crawley Hurst. Dan had been on a tour of England, but short of money had agreed to meet Tom Oliver, another experienced English fighter. The match took place on 21st July 1819. This turned out to be a gruelling encounter, with Donnelly eventually emerging victorious after thirty four rounds. Within a year Dan was dead. His career as a prize fighter was not prolific, but he was unbeaten. There are not many boxers who can claim a 100% record! Dan Donnelly 1788 – 1820 But it is not only for his pugilistic prowess, that he is mainly remembered today. Donnelly was unfortunate enough to die at a time, when the medical profession was just starting to realise that many illnesses were due to pathological changes occurring inside the body. To further their understanding, surgeons were keen to obtain cadavers on which they could carry out autopsies and dissections. Keen to meet this demand, unscrupulous individuals took to robbing the graves of the recently interred, selling them on to surgeons, who must have been only too well aware of the practice. This was the fate of poor Dan’s body. As a much lamented son of Ireland, it was not long before visitors to his graveside noticed that his resting place had been disturbed. Uproar ensued, and shortly thereafter, a surgeon by the name of Doctor Hall confessed to having possession of the body. Apparently, he had not initially recognised the corpse as that of the famed fighter, and immediately gave an assurance that he would re inter Dan’s mortal remains. This he did, with the exception of the late fighter’s right arm! Apparently the surgeon wanted to conduct medical tests on the arm that dispatched the English fighters. Accounts differ as to whether this omission was made with or without the permission of Donnelly’s admirers. Dan Donnelly’s Arm! To preserve the arm, it was coated in red lead paint, and it subsequently found its way to Scotland, where it was used as a teaching aid at Edinburgh University, for around fifty years. The mummified arm was then sold to a travelling circus, who displayed the gruesome artefact on tours of England, until it was again sold, this time to a Belfast publican in 1904. Over the course of the twentieth century, it spent most of the time on display in a couple public houses in Ireland. When the last of these establishments changed hands (no pun intended), the arm was removed from display, and turned up next in New York as part of an exhibition of fighting Irishmen. The arm returned home to Ireland in 2009, and to date, continues to make appearances at exhibitions of boxing memorabilia. Compared to Dan himself, who left the Emerald Isle only once in his lifetime, his right arm has put in some serious mileage over the years! Source: http://www.theboxingglove.com/2015/03/the-legend-of-dan-donnelly-irelands.html