Shillelagh, the cudgel carried by the conventional Irishman, with which he is supposed to delight to play upon the heads of his friends on occasion. The name is borrowed from the once famous oak-forest of Shillelagh in the south-west corner of County Wicklow, which in Rufus' day furnished 'cobwebless beams' for the roof of Westminster Hall. The railway station of Shillelagh, 16½ miles SW. of Aughrim, is the terminus of a branch-line.
Shillelagh
Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 9: Bound to Swansea, p. 399
Source scan(s): p. 0412