Shillelagh

Susan brought me an article by William Rivers Pitt on the blackthorn walking stick he had inherited from his father. I wear a blackthorn stick on my own walks, and it's about an inch thick, mostly black and decorated with thorns. That's fine, but in his essay Pitt made a crucial error. Several times he referred to his stick as a shillelagh. I can't stand that kind of sloppy diction.

A blackthorn walking stick is about a yard in length. A blackthorn shillelagh is about 18 inches long, and it functions as a short club. It  is akin to a billy club or to a carpenter's wooden mallet.  

You'd look damned silly hunched down and using a billy club as a cane.