Shillelagh tale: Special stick at heart of Savannah St. Patrick’s Day Parade

Not any old piece of wood will do for these coveted keepsakes.

“I look for hardwoods to start with. Oak is good, steady wood,” LeMay said. “Fig is wonderful. Fig is hard as a brick and makes a good stick,” unlike pine that becomes too brittle once it dries. She also favors crepe myrtle; in February, she filled her brother Roger’s Chevy Sonic with 45 to 50 branches after a friend alerted LeMay to some recently pruned trees.

She relies on her trusty Japanese pull saw when harvesting branches, leaving the sticks long enough to adapt their length to the height of their recipient. She has one unwavering rule about harvesting wood, though.

“If that tree is housing an animal,” such as a nest, “I will not cut it,” she said. “I don’t do anything to damage the tree.”

The stick must dry out before she begins work.

“If you don’t dry it out, you have nothing but firewood; it’d break,” she explained. It’s a process that can’t be hurried. “If you dry it too fast, the wood cracks.”

While she logs the dates she harvests sticks, LeMay also relies on the wood’s feel to know when it’s dry enough to strip it of small branches and other imperfections. Sanding begins next, starting with coarser 60-to-80-grit sandpaper and typically finishing with a finer 220-grit sandpaper for a satiny finish.

“It gets smoother and smoother and smoother,” she said of the wood. “I want it to be baby-butt smooth” for staining. She typically uses brown tones.

After the stain dries, carving begins and takes several days. While she performs heavy-duty woodwork outside, LeMay says she arranges lamps around her living room to provide the light she needs for carving. Then, a magnifier around her forehead and a small carving knife in hand, she lightly traces the pattern she created of the image and wording that will adorn the stick.

Hogan’s shillelagh bears a rustic-looking, two-dimensional Celtic Cross and a scattering of small shamrocks. A Celtic font proclaims the words “heart of gold,” St. Patrick’s Day 2026, Hogan’s name and Grand Marshal title. The wording remains consistent over the years, though there may be some slight variation. One grand marshal, for example, asked LeMay to add his wife’s name to the stick.

Classical music or Christmas tunes often play in the background while her dog, Della, reclines on the sofa. She then applies two coats of sealant to the wood “to make it shiny and pretty” and achieve the high gloss she wants before affixing a rubber tip to the end of the shillelagh, completing the process.

There are 11th-hour mishaps, like discovering a nick in her work or noticing the stain has faded. There’s also the occasional injury. She once slipped while using the sander. The sander belt cut into a knuckle on her right hand, breaking a finger and slicing the skin so deeply she could see the knucklebone.

“I cleaned it out, medicated it, bandaged it, and went right back to work,” after a trip to the doctor, LeMay said.

‘I cut my teeth on power tools’

Working with wood connects her to her late father, Frederic W. LeMay, a master carpenter who often took her on his smaller jobs.

“I drove nails like a fiend (for him),” she said. “It was something I loved. … I cut my teeth on his power tools.” When she wasn’t trailing after her father or playing with wood-burning kits, LeMay was crocheting Christmas stockings with her Irish mother, Dorothy Carter LeMay, or learning about woodworking from her brother, the late George J. LeMay, also a carpenter.

Back in the day, LeMay sandblasted and assembled commercial signs for a Savannah company. Jobs ranged in size; one sign was 3-feet-by-8-feet, another 6-feet-by-12-feet. Many were for apartment complexes but could include small assignments such as sandblasting a sign for a candy store.

Creating shillelaghs for the grand marshals happened by chance — or perhaps it was the luck o’ the Irish. LeMay was carving sticks in the back room of Saints & Shamrocks, a Savannah shop near the parade committee office. Her friend and store owner, the late Jeanne Zittrauer, had offered LeMay the space to create her sticks, which were sold in the store.

Native Savannahian Hugh Coleman was on the parade committee in 2003 when he and his wife, Angela, popped into the shop that sells Irish merchandise. They spotted LeMay working on her sticks.

That encounter resulted in LeMay creating a shillelagh for the 2004 grand marshal, the late Rev. Joseph F. Ware. It became the first of many she would create for the grand marshals, including Coleman, the 2015 grand marshal.

“She does a beautiful job, and no two are just alike,” said Coleman, who counts LeMay among his friends. “She’s very talented.”

LeMay says she loves crafting the sticks, calling it “cathartic,” and noted recipients have been known to get emotional when she presents them with their shillelagh. One man was in tears, she recalled.

“Golly,” she remembered with a chuckle, “I made a grown man cry.”

When not plying her craft, she oversees the parade’s Flags of Ireland Unit and sings in the choir at the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist, where the grand marshal attends Mass before the parade begins. Then, shillelagh in hand, he will lead the celebration through Savannah’s historic downtown.

More to know about shillelaghs:

The shillelagh, an Irish fighting stick with a gnarled, knotty top, originated in rural Ireland as a versatile tool and weapon — herding cattle, breaking up fights and formidable cudgel against attackers. Stick fighting was once common as a martial art in Europe, according to the Irish Central website. It was also used as a walking stick — its use today — as well as a ceremonial or decorative object.

Pronounced “sha-lay-lee,” it has become a symbol of Irish identity, pride, and fighting spirit.

Traditionally, the stick was made of blackthorn, a heavy wood prevalent in Ireland and named for the color of its thorns, according to a website on walking canes. The blackthorn tree is associated with Celtic mythology and the “fairy folk.” Oak and holly also was used to craft the sticks.

So where does the name ‘shillelagh’ come from? There are several theories. One is that it’s from the village of Shillelagh, County Wicklow, once known for its blackthorn and oak trees. The village’s name, Síol Éalaigh, was Anglicized to Shillelagh.

Early shillelaghs had a leather strap attached at one end; some think the shillelagh’s name may be a derivation of the Gaelic word, “sail éille,” or “thonged willow stick,” according to CombatShillelagh.com.