On September 14th, courtesy of Love Heritage NI/Department for Communities: Historic Environment Division, the instructors and students of Medieval Combat Group were out at Narrow Water Keep on the shores of Carlingford Lough. We spent an excellent four hours there, sparring, training, and demonstrating period longsword fencing for members of the public and chatting to them about HEMA.
The towerhouse and bawn at Narrow Water were built around 1560, putting them only a few decades later than the historic European sources we most commonly use for longsword fencing. The garrison size was small, ranging from four foot soldiers to 12 light skirmishing infantry (kerns) and six horsemen. Whilst we predominantly train from German language fencing texts, that’s a reflection of the survival bias of the texts, and many of the techniques for longsword or single handed sword would have been familiar to any trained fencer of the period.
All in all, an excellent day out, and we’re very much looking forward to more to come!
