Claddagh ring

The Claddagh ring (Irish: fáinne Chladaigh) is a traditional Irish ring given which represents love, loyalty, and friendship (the hands represent friendship; the heart represents love; and the crown represents loyalty).^[1][2]

The design and customs associated with it originated in the Irish fishing village of Claddagh, located just outside the old city walls of Galway, now part of Galway City.^[3] The ring, as currently known, was first produced in the 17th century.^[4]

Description

The Claddagh ring belongs to a group of European finger rings called "fede rings".^[5][6] The name "fede" derives from the Italian phrase mani in fede ("hands [joined] in faith" or "hands [joined] in loyalty"). These rings date from Roman times, when the gesture of clasped hands was a symbol of pledging vows, and they were used as engagement/wedding rings in medieval and Renaissance Europe.^[2][5]

Fede rings are cast in the form of two clasped hands, symbolising faith, trust, or "plighted troth".^[7] The Claddagh ring is a variation on the fede ring,^[8] while the hands, heart, and crown motif was used in England in the early 18th century.^[9]

Towards the end of the 20th century there was an explosion of interest in the Claddagh Ring, both as jewellery and as an icon of Irishness that now adorns many other objects from pub signs to grave stones. In more recent years it has been embellished with interlace designs and combined with other Celtic and Irish symbols, but this is a very recent phenomenon that corresponds with the worldwide expansion in popularity of the Claddagh ring as an emblem of Irish identity.

Origins

Galway has produced Claddagh rings continuously since at least 1700,^[4] but the name "Claddagh ring" was not used before the 1840s.^[6][10][11]

As an example of a maker, Bartholomew Fallon was a 17th-century Irish goldsmith, based in Galway, who made Claddagh rings until circa 1700. His name first appears in the will of one Dominick Martin, also a jeweller, dated 26 January 1676, in which Martin willed Fallon some of his tools. Fallon continued working as a goldsmith until 1700. His are among the oldest surviving examples of the Claddagh ring, in many cases bearing his signature.^[12]

There are many legends about the origins of the ring, particularly concerning Richard Joyce, a silversmith from Galway circa 1700, who is said to have invented the Claddagh design as we know it.^[3][4] Legend has it that Joyce was captured and enslaved by Algerian Corsairs around 1675 while on a passage to the West Indies; he was sold into slavery to a Moorish goldsmith who taught him the craft. King William III sent an ambassador to Algeria to demand the release of any and all British subjects who were enslaved in that country, which at the time would have included the Richard Joyce. After fourteen years, Joyce was released and returned to Galway and brought along with him the ring he had fashioned while in captivity: what we've come to know as the Claddagh. He gave the ring to his sweetheart, married, and became a goldsmith with "considerable success".^[13] His initials are in one of the earliest surviving Claddagh rings^[6] but there are three other rings also made around that time, bearing the mark of goldsmith Thomas Meade.^[6]

A more mystical legend is also associated with the Joyce family: Margaret Joyce used her inheritance (from her late husband, Domingo de Rona, a wealthy Spanish merchant who traded with Galway)^[14] to build bridges in the province of Connacht. In 1596, she remarried Oliver Og French, Mayor of Galway.Claddagh Museum at Thomas Dillon's Claddagh Gold, Galway, Ireland.

The Victorian antiquarian Sir William Jones described the Claddagh,^[2] and gives Chambers' Book of Days^[15] as the source, in his book Finger Ring Lore. Jones says:

The clasped hands [style ring]... are... still the fashion, and in constant use in [the]... community [of] Claddugh [sic] at [County] Galway.... [They] rarely [intermarry] with others than their own people.

An account written in 1906 by William Dillon, a Galway jeweller, claimed that the "Claddagh" ring was worn in the Aran Isles, Connemara and beyond.^[16] Knowledge of the ring and its customs spread within the British Isles during the Victorian period, and this is when its name became established.^[6] Galway jewellers began to market it beyond the local area in the 19th century.^[6][17] Further recognition came in the 20th century.^[8]

American mineralogist and ring expert George Frederick Kunz does not mention the Claddagh ring in the text of his book, but a photo of one, captioned with its correct name, is depicted.^[1] Kunz merely addresses the importance of gold wedding rings in Ireland with absolutely no reference to the Claddagh other than the photo. The story of the Claddagh ring is too loaded with myth to precisely identify the true origins of its design, beyond the Roman fede ring design, or its history.^[1] Furthermore, it is unclear exactly how or when the ring was brought to the United States. McCarthy practically fails to address the subject of Irish rings at all.^[18]

Usage and symbolism

The Claddagh's distinctive design features two hands clasping a heart, and usually surmounted by a crown. The elements of this symbol are often said to correspond to the qualities of love (the heart), friendship (the hands), and loyalty (the crown). A "Fenian" Claddagh ring, without a crown, is a slightly different take on the design. Claddagh rings, with (more commonly than not) or without the crown, are relatively popular among the Irish^[3] and those of Irish heritage, such as Irish Americans,^[19] as culture symbols and/or as symbols of engagement, marriage, or love.^[20]

Claddagh rings are often used as friendship rings but are most commonly used as engagement/wedding rings. Mothers also give these rings to daughters when they come of age. When the hands that hold the heart are angled towards the girl, that means she is taken, when the heart faces out, the girl is single. This has become common largely due to the sentimental motto: "This is my heart which I give to you crowned with my love." Also associated with the ring is this wish: "Let love and friendship reign."^[21] In Ireland, the United States, and other places, the Claddagh is handed down mother-to-eldest daughter or grandmother-to-granddaughter.^[22] According to Irish author Colin Murphy, the way in which a Claddagh ring was worn with the intention of conveying the wearer's relationship status:

1. On the right hand with the point of the heart toward the fingertips, the wearer is single and may be looking for love. (This is most commonly the case when a young woman has first received the ring from a relative, unless she is already engaged.)
2. On the right hand with the point of the heart toward the wrist, the wearer is in a relationship. (This suggests that the wearer's heart has been "captured".)
3. On the left hand with the point of the heart toward the fingertips, the wearer is engaged.
4. On the left hand with the point of the heart toward the wrist, the wearer is married.^[20]

There are other localised variations in the traditions involving the hand and the finger upon which the Claddagh is worn. Folklore about the ring is relatively recent, not ancient, with "very little native Irish writing about the ring". Hence, the difficulty today in finding any source that describes or explains the traditional ways of wearing the ring.^[23]

In popular culture

Claddagh rings have been used often as plot devices in films and television, such as in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes "Surprise", "Innocence", "Becoming, Part One", "Leap Year" and "Faith, Hope & Trick".^[24]

Famous wearers of the Claddagh ring are John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, who obtained the rings on a trip to Galway in 1963.

In the months following the attacks on the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001, it was estimated that over 200 Claddagh rings were found in the ruins of the Twin Towers.^[25]

See also

• Luckenbooth brooch
• Ecclesiastical ring
• Pre-engagement ring
• Engagement ring
• Wedding ring

References

External links

• 18th century Claddagh ring – Victoria and Albert museum