NATIONAL COAT OF ARMS IRELAND National Arms, or Arms of Sovereignty and Dominion as they are correctly known, differ from other armorial bearings in many respects, and their precise significance should be kept carefully in mind. National Coats of Arms stand, not for any particular area of land, but for the intangible sovereignty vested in the rulers of the land. They properly belong to kingdoms and states and are annexed, as it were, to these but are borne by their representative rulers or heads of state. They are ensigns of public authority and they are not hereditary. They pass by conquest. If a subject should ascend a throne, he would customarily lay aside those arms that had previously been his...
When Edward Mac Lysaght was appointed to the newly created position of Chief Herald of Ireland in 1943 he also became head of Genealogy for Ireland and the old office of Ulster King of Arms in Dublin became the Genealogical Office, which is now part of the National Library of Ireland. Just as Scottish Clans share a common bond and crest, so Irish Septs share a common ancestor and common bloodlines. Edward Mac Lysaght set about recording the principal Irish Septs and illustrated their Coats of Arms in part three of Mac Lysaght’s Irish Families. The essay on Heraldry that accompanies it is fascinating because Mac Lysaght was in the unique position of defining the rules of modern Irish Heraldry....
As mentioned in our earlier blog post on totemism, http://www.heraldicjewelry.com/2/post/2012/10/the-symbolism-of-heraldry-part-3-totemism.html tribal societies the world over define themselves by animal totems from the aboriginals of Australia to the Native American tribes of North America. Ancient Ireland was no different and tribes connected by blood identified with animals. In the epic Irish story The Cattle Raid of Cooley for example we hear of the Partraighi “ the people of the stag”. In Southern Ireland many families from the province of Munster revered the stag, defining their borders by the routes of stag hunts and choosing their rulers based on their prowess at hunting stags. ...
The earliest reference to a herald of arms for Ireland is to Chandos Herald, the herald of John Chandos. Chandos Herald was appointed “Ireland King of Arms” in 1382. Chandos had a number of successors, who appear to have been regarded as members of the English College of Arms, up to the time of Edward IV of England (1442 – 1483). The last recorded incumbent was Thomas Ashwell. It is not known whether the post continued after him. In 1552 the Office of Ulster King of Arms was created by Edward VI, The first Ulster King of Arms was Bartholomew Butler, who by Letters Patent of 1 June 1552, was granted 'all rights, profits, commodities and emoluments in that...
The noted heraldic writer Arthur Charles Fox-Davies in his Heraldry Explained ( 1925 ) noted that “ In Ireland there still exists the unique opportunity of obtaining a confirmation of arms upon mere proof of user …… The present regulation is that user must be proved for at least three generations, and be proved also to have existed for one hundred years.” Sir Bernard Burke,image below, who held the office of Ulster King of Arms for nearly 40 years ( 1854 – 1892 ), in the introduction to his Burke’s General Armoury mentions that the confirmation was accompanied by the addition of some slight heraldic difference mark. In Ireland the system of heraldic funerals prevailed as in England but with...
