Claddagh ring

Claddagh ring

The Claddagh ring (Irish: fáinne Chladaigh) is a traditional Irish ring given as a token of friendship or love or worn as a wedding ring. The design and customs associated with it originated in the Irish fishing village of Claddagh, located just outside the city of Galway. The ring was first produced in the 17th century during the reign of William and Mary, though elements of the design date to the late Roman period.

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).

Claddagh rings may be used as friendship or relationship rings depending on the intention of wearer and, in the case of a gift, of the giver. There are three traditionally accepted ways of wearing the ring which may signal someone's relationship status:^[1]

1. When worn on the right ring finger with the heart pointing to the fingertip, the wearer is free of any attachment.
2. On the same finger but the other way round, with the heart pointing away from the fingertip, it suggests someone is romantically involved.
3. When the ring is on the left hand wedding ring finger, it means the person is married or engaged.^[1]

There are other traditions involving the hand and the finger upon which the Claddagh is worn but these are difficult to reference. Folklore about the ring is relatively recent with no "slow growth from antiquity" and "very little native Irish writing about the ring" according to Sean McMahon.^[1]

Origins

The Claddagh ring is closely related to a group of European finger rings called "fede rings".^[2][3] The name "fede" comes 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 love and marriage rings in medieval and Renaissance Europe.^[2]

Fede rings are cast in the form of two clasped hands, symbolizing faith, trust, or “plighted troth". Nowadays, the Claddagh ring is seen as a distinctively Irish variation on the fede ring,^[4] although the hands, heart, and crown motif was once used in other European countries too.^[5]

Galway has produced Claddagh rings continuously since at least 1700,^[6] but the name "Claddagh ring" was not used before the 1840s.^[7][8]

An early written description of this kind of ring was published in 1843, along with an illustration. Ireland, its Scenery, Character etc. by Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Carter Hall has a section about the Claddagh fishing community and their wedding rings. In a footnote, the Halls mention a "strong analogy" with older gimmal rings, despite the "rudeness of their [the Galway rings'] construction".

The wedding ring is a heir-loom [sic] in a family. It is regularly transferred by the mother to her daughter first married; and so on to their descendants. These rings are large, of solid gold, and not unfrequently [sic] cost from two to three pounds each. The one we have here copied had evidently seen much service. Some of them are plainer; but the greater number are thus formed.

There are very similar descriptions in later 19th century books and journals. The Victorian antiquarian William Jones^[9] gives Chambers' Book of Days^[10] as the source for Claddagh information in his book "Finger-Ring Lore: historical, legendary, anecdotal". Chambers uses the Halls' account "almost verbatim".^[3]

Jones explains:

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. The [Claddagh] wedding-ring is a [sic] heirloom in the family... transferred from the mother to the daughter who is first [to be] married, and so passes to her descendants. Many of these [rings]... are very old.

In 1996, the Halls' information was examined by Ida Delamer, an expert on antique Irish silver.^[8][3] She is sceptical about the Halls' account, and implies it has been romanticised. Reasons for her doubts include:

• The authors were misled by folklorist Thomas Crofton Croker.
• "...with a few exceptions, all extant... Claddagh rings made prior to 1840 are male [men's] rings"

Delamer refers to a 1906 account by William Dillon,^[11] Dillon, from a family of Galway jewellers in business since c. 1750, says that the "Claddagh" ring was worn in the Aran Isles, Connemara, and beyond.

The Claddagh ring was a more or less marginal custom in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Knowledge of it spread within the British Isles during the Victorian period, and this is when its name became established.^[3] Galway jewellers began to market it beyond the local area in the 19th century,^[3][12] and presented a ring to Queen Victoria in 1849. Dublin goldsmiths started to make it too, and more "widespread recognition" came in the 20th century.^[13]

American mineralogist and ring buff George Frederick Kunz does not mention the Claddagh ring in his book, but he shows a photo captioned with its correct name; Kunz merely addresses the importance of gold wedding rings in Ireland,^[14] but it is unclear exactly how and when the ring's popularity spread in the US. Interestingly enough, McCarthy neither mentions the ring nor illustrates an example of it, even though he cites/credits Jones and Kunz among others.

A "Fenian" Claddagh ring, without the crown, was later designed in Dublin. Claddagh rings, with or without the crown (most commonly with a crown), have come to denote pride in Irish heritage, while continuing to be symbols of love and marriage.

Legends

There are many legends about the origins of the ring, particularly those connected with the Joyce Family of Galway. Richard Joyce was a silversmith working around 1700.^[15] His initials are on one of the earliest surviving Claddagh rings with a maker's mark,^[3] but there are three others also made around that time, with the mark of goldsmith Thomas Meade.^[3] Suggestions that Joyce originated the design are "extremely unlikely" according to Delamer. Some elements found in the legends appeared in a footnote about Joyce family traditions in James Hardiman's History of Galway (1820).

The story of the Claddagh ring ... has so much folklore and myth attached to it that it is difficult to know where legend ends and truth begins. (Ida Delamer)

Modern usage

Claddaghs continue to be worn, primarily by those of Irish heritage, as both a cultural symbol and as engagement and wedding rings.^[16]

Claddagh rings have made periodic appearances in movies and television, often as a plot device to indicate the ethnic origins or relationship status of a character, to illustrate wedding scenes, or to indicate subtly that the relationship of two characters has changed.

Sometimes, authors of fiction and fantasy works have given the ring a somewhat altered or fanciful symbolism to better suit their purposes, such as writer/director Joss Whedon's use of the ring as a recurring plot device in the television series, Buffy The Vampire Slayer.^[17]

At their Celtic pagan handfasting, Irish/Scottish American^[18] musician Jim Morrison of The Doors and Irish American author Patricia Kennealy-Morrison exchanged Claddagh rings.^[19] A picture of the rings was included on the cover of Kennealy-Morrison's memoir, Strange Days: My Life With and Without Jim Morrison, and the Claddaghs can be seen in most of her author photos as well.^[19]

See also

• Bartholomew Fallon
• Luckenbooth brooch

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c} McMahon, S. (2005). Story of the Claddagh Ring, Mercier Press
2. ^ ^{a b} Scarisbrick and Henig, Finger Rings, Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2003
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Delamer
4. ^ Elizabeth McCrum, Irish Victorian Jewellery, in Irish Arts Review, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Spring, 1985), pp. 18-21.
5. ^ 1706 English ring.
6. ^ Jack Mulveen, Galway Goldsmiths, Their Marks and Ware, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, Vol. 46, (1994), pp. 43–64.
7. ^ Ida Delamer, The Claddagh Ring, Irish Arts Review (Vol. 12, (1996), pp. 181–187 .
8. ^ ^{a b} A freely available but incomplete copy of Delamer's article, The Claddagh Ring (1996), without pictures.
9. ^ Finger-ring Lore, William Jones FSA, Chatto & Windus, 1877.
10. ^ Robert Chambers, Book of Days: A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities, 1863 (2004 reprint).
11. ^ William Dillon, in the Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, Vol V 1905–6.
12. ^ Letters to Dillon's of Galway.
13. ^ Elizabeth McCrum, Irish Victorian Jewellery, Irish Arts Review, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Spring, 1985), pp. 18–21 http://www.jstor.org/stable/20491715
14. ^ Rings for the Finger, by George Frederick Kunz, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1917.
15. ^ Galway Goldsmiths, Their Marks and Ware Jack Mulveen, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society Vol. 46, (1994), pp. 43–64
16. ^ Murphy, Colin, and Donal O'Dea (2006) The Feckin' Book of Everything Irish. New York, Barnes & Noble. p.126 ISBN 0-7607-8219-9
17. ^ Stafford, Nikki (2002) Bite Me! An Unofficial Guide to the World of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Toronto, ECW Press. ISBN 1-55022-540-5 p. 213
18. ^ http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_story/1930:2450/1/Jim_Morrison.htm
19. ^ ^{a b} Kennealy, Patricia (1992). Strange Days: My Life With And Without Jim Morrison. New York: Dutton/Penguin. ISBN 0-525-93419-7. 

References

• Jones, William, (1890) Finger Ring Lore
• Kunz, George Frederick, (1911) Rings for the Finger
• McCarthy, James Remington, (1945) Rings Throughout the Ages
• Mitchell, James, (1985, 1986) The mis-titled ‘Joyce’ tomb in the Collegiate Church of St Nicholas, Galway, vol. 40
• Mulveen, Jack, (1994) "Galway Goldsmiths: Their Mark and Ware", Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, vol. 46
• Martyn, Adrian James, (2001) The Tribes of Galway, Galway
• Sammon, Paddy (2002), Greenspeak: Ireland in Her Own Words, Town House Press. ISBN 1-860-59144-2
• Pearsall, Judy [ed.], (2004) "Claddagh Ring" in The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Oxford University Press
• McAdoo, Patricia, (2005) Claddagh: The Tale of the Ring with illustrations by James Newell

External links

• 18th century Claddagh ring - Victoria and Albert museum
• The story behind the Claddagh ring - RTÉ news feature (click on "Watch the Show" under the image on the right)