Kilkenny cat

The term Kilkenny cat refers to anyone who is a tenacious fighter. The origin of the term is now lost so there are many stories purporting to give the true meaning.

To "fight like a Kilkenny cat" refers to an old story about two cats who fought to the death and ate each other up such that only their tails were left. There is also a limerick (with optional added couplet) about the two cats:

The story has many roots.

The earliest suggested origin is that according to Irish legend, the monster cat Banghaisgidheach made its home in Dunmore Caves in Kilkenny County, about 6 miles north of Kilkenny city.

A local version of the story tells that in the mid 17th century, Oliver Cromwell's soldiers tied the tails of all the cats in Kilkenny in pairs of two and hung them over a wire. The cats then fought until they had killed each other.

The other origin from this time suggests it was a commentary on the lack of agreement within the Confederate Assembly during the Irish Confederate Wars.

It is said to be an allegory on the disastrous municipal quarrels of Kilkenny and Irishtown which lasted from the end of the 14th to the end of the 17th centuries. After the Statutes of Kilkenny the city was divided into two boroughs called Irishtown and Englishtown. For religious, cultural and political reasons there were deep divisions between the two groups. This may lend itself to the story of two cats fighting. Because the rights and duties of the two townships hadn't been made clear by statute this led to three centuries of dispute between the rival municipal bodies that ended in beggaring both of them. There is a passage in the bible which bears a resemblance to the phrase and meaning in this usage: Galatians 5 "Love your neighbour as yourself. If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other."

The story is told in 1807, as if by an Irish gentleman amongst a group of Naval officers, about watching two cats fighting and pushing them into an enclosed area to see the outcome only to have no remains but a tail.

Versions were told in detail in Notes & Queries, in 1864 it was said that a group of German soldiers (Hessians) were stationed in Kilkenny, during the period of the 1798 rebellion. To relieve the boredom in barracks, sadistic soldiers would tie two cats together by their tails, hang them over a washing line to fight and place bets on the "winning" cat. Gambling was contrary to military regulations, the story goes that the soldiers, alarmed by the impending arrival of an officer, released the cats by cutting their tails with a sword. When the officer arrived and inquired about the scene facing him, he was told that "they've eaten each other up"

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Wikipedia