Morrigan's Melee

15/03/2026

All of us at Morrigan’s Melee are very proud to announce the total raised for our nominated charity for 2026 GLOW NI was £782.

To find out more about the great work that GLOW NI do check out their website www. glowni.com

07/03/2026

That brings Morrigans Melee 2026 to a close.

Thanks to everyone who came today for our taster and practitioners classes. It was lovely to catch up with old friends, make new friends and share our love of HEMA together.

We’ll announce the total raised for GLOW NI in a day or two when we’ve had chance to tot it up.

Extra thanks to Helen Gallagher for coming up to teach our longsword workshops and to MCG’s own Ross Bailey for running the sharps cutting.

04/03/2026

Really looking forward to seeing you all on Saturday!!

Just to confirm. The venue is the church hall behind St. Mary Magdalene Parish Church on Donegall Pass. There's a small carpark beside the church on the corner of Donegall Pass and Maryville Street. Between the church and that small carpark is a lane leading behind the church. (Kamakura restaurant will be almost directly behind you if you're looking down the lane). Go down that lane that leads behind the church and you'll see a pair of double doors in front of you. Through those, up the flight of stairs on your right hand side, and the hall is through the double doors that will be on your right at the top of the stairs.

28/02/2026

Very much looking forward to seeing you all next week for Morrigan’s Melee 2026.

Taster classes start at 9 am and our practitioners can arrive from 11 am onwards.

Our venue is St Mary Magdalene Church hall on Donegall Pass.

More information is in your event packs but if you have any questions please just get in touch

[email protected]

21/02/2026

Only 2 weeks to go until Morrigans Melee 2026! As well as being a great opportunity to get together for good training and community building, the event is also going to be raising funds for a fabulous Belfast based charity GLOW NI. https://glowni.com

Established in 2011, Glow was developed from a common desire of women in the local community to address issues facing their peers such as low self-esteem & confidence, mental health problems, isolation and a general lack of purpose.

As an inter-generational, cross community organisation, Glow challenges the status quo in order to break the vicious cycle of these issues by equipping women and young girls with tools and techniques to build their confidence, self-esteem, resilience and life skills. This will help them set positive, realistic steps in achieving their goal, enabling them to live happy fulfilled lives.

There are still a few tickets still available for the practitioners classes https://medievalcombat.co.uk/morrigans-melee/

Any questions please get in touch [email protected]

Morrigan’s Melee 2026 Morrigan’s Melee 2026 artwork courtesy of and copyright of Eleanor Street. Medieval Combat Group is proud to host the Morrigan’s Melee for 2026. MCG is a trans-inclusive club, and we’re delighted to host an event dedicated to encouraging the growth of and inclusivity of...

14/02/2026

Only 3 weeks to go until Morrigans Melee 2026! We are so excited to welcome current and new friends to Belfast for the event and are really looking forward to the opportunity to learn and grow together as a FLINTA community of HEMA-ists.

There are still a few tickets still available for the practitioners classes https://medievalcombat.co.uk/morrigans-melee/

Any questions please get in touch [email protected]

06/02/2026

INSTRUCTOR ANNOUNCEMENT

We are very pleased to announce our final instructor for Morrigan’s Melee 2026 is Ross Bailey of Medieval Combat Group

Ross (he/him) has a long background in a number of eastern martial arts and has been training in HEMA for over 13 years. Ross is a senior instructor at Medieval Combat Group and was foundational in bringing messer into the club. As one might expect from a professional archaeologist, Ross has a passion for the history and context of the weapons we train and is always generous in sharing that knowledge with students and the wider HEMA Community.

Ross will be leading out the test cutting at Morrigan’s. Test cutting with sharps is a great way to test structure and alignment in your cutting and can give really helpful insights for things you might want to develop further. Cutting can be practiced with either a messer or longsword and Ross will give feedback and support to help you develop -whether this is your first time test cutting or you are experienced in this area.

31/01/2026

Instructor Announcement!

We are very proud to announce that the second instructor for Morrigan’s Melee 2026 is Helen Gallagher from The Exiles Galway.

Helen (she/her) has been practicing HEMA for 12yrs and is the current Secretary of HEMA Ireland. Her main area of interest is German longsword but she has dabbled with other weapons and styles over the years too. The aspects she likes most about HEMA are the community and the depth of weapons and historical sources to study!

Her class "Close enough: an exploration of distance, range and measure in Liechtenauer's Longsword" is going to examine how particular techniques work at differing ranges and how one might learn to use that for success when they have shorter reach/a taller opponent.

26/01/2026

Everyone who has signed up for the tasters or the practitioners event should have received an event pack this with some more details.

23/01/2026

Class Announcement!!!

Kelly Anderton (she/her) is going to be teaching a class on German messer from the fechtbuch of Johannes Leckuchner (1482) titled “Don’t Mess(er) With Me”

Kelly has been training in HEMA for over 9 years and has been an instructor at Medieval Combat Group in Belfast for the last year and a half. Her main weapon has always been the messer and she particularly enjoys trying to join the historical context of the weapon to the physical training side of things

Her class will examine the duties of the medieval citizen within the town context and consider why Leckuchner has so many non-lethal techniques within his system when other simpler options for the same situation seem to exist.

The class is aimed at all levels of HEMA practitioner whether you have been training for many years and have familiarity with the messer or you have only been training a few months and never picked up a messer before.

Please note there will be standing grapples and controls in the class so person to person contact is to be expected. Kelly and the rest of MCG will work with you as far as possible to adjust techniques to your comfort levels.

18/01/2026

MCG is delighted to be hosting Morrigan’s Melee for 2026.

This is the 5th time that the event has run and we hope this will be the biggest one yet.

There are still some spaces left in the practitioners part of the day. If you are an existing HEMA practitioner who is a woman or non-binary but comfortable in women presenting spaces, we would love to welcome you to Belfast to build community, support the development of HEMA for all and have a lot of fun.

Below are some pictures from previous Morrigan’s Melee

See you there!