To chance your arm – the door of reconciliation

This summer I visited Dublin Cathedral and as we were walking around I came across a door standing in the middle of the floor. It is a very old wooden door with a curious hole in the middle.  Drawing closer we realized it was not only a door of significance but in fact is the door behind the phrase “to chance your arm.”

It seems that in the year 1492 the Butlers of Ormonde and the FitzGeralds of Kildare were rivals families locked in a longstanding dispute over who should be the Lord Deputy. No resolution was reached and in that year the dispute became violent and a small battle occurred outside Dublin city walls.

The fight did not go well for the Butlers and so, realizing fortune had turned against them, they fled to St Patrick’s Cathedral where they took refuge.  Their enemies pursued them to the cathedral and asked them to open the door and come out and agree to a peace.

The Butlers did not believe that they could trust the Fitzgeralds and so refused to open the door as they feared they would be killed.

So it was that Gerald FitzGerald asked for an axeman to chop a hole in the door. When this was done he pushed his hand through the door as a gesture of peace. The head of the Butler family took this as a sign of good faith and shook hands with Gerald. The fighting was over and peace restored.

Here I am chancing my arm but Jane, my wife, did not have any weapons!

The door is known today as the “Door of Reconciliation”.  It is believed then that this story was the origin of a commonly used Irish phrase “To chance your arm” or to take a risk.