Irish Family Crests: A Complete Guide to Gaelic Heraldry

This is where most accounts go wrong. Before the Normans, Irish kindreds identified themselves by name and genealogy, not by devices on shields. The learned families kept elaborate written pedigrees — the Book of Leinster, the Book of Ballymote, the Ó Cléirigh genealogies — and lineage recited aloud did the job a coat of arms did in France.

That is why Irish surnames are among the oldest hereditary surnames in Europe. Ó Briain, Ó Néill, Ó Conchobhair and their kind were fixed in the tenth and eleventh centuries, while English surnames were still two or three hundred years away.

Heraldry arrived with the Anglo-Norman invasion of 1169: the Fitzgeralds, Butlers, de Burghs, Barrys and Roches brought continental arms with them. Gaelic chiefs adopted the practice later, largely in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and adapted it — which is why Gaelic arms tend to be simple, bold and few-charged compared with the busy Norman shields.

Irish families divide, for heraldic purposes, into two groups that behave differently in the records.

Gaelic Irish — names with Ó or Mac: O'Neill, O'Brien, O'Connor, MacCarthy, O'Donnell, O'Sullivan, Kennedy, Murphy. Their arms are often territorial, associated with a kingdom or a lordship, and they appear in the record later.

Old English, the Hiberno-Normans who arrived after 1169 and became, in the phrase, more Irish than the Irish themselves — Fitzgerald, Butler, Burke, Barry, Roche, Power, Dillon, Nugent. Their arms are continental in style and documented from the start, frequently in English rolls as well as Irish sources.

A third layer arrived with the plantations from the sixteenth century onwards, bringing English and Scottish arms to Ulster and elsewhere.

Ireland's heraldic authority has a history nobody else's has.

The office of Ulster King of Arms was created in 1552 by Edward VI — separate from the College of Arms in London, with jurisdiction over the whole island. It is the second-oldest heraldic office in the British Isles after the English kings of arms, and its records begin in the sixteenth century.

After independence the office was divided. In 1943 its Irish records and functions passed to the new Genealogical Office in Dublin, headed by the Chief Herald of Ireland, while the title merged with Norroy in London for Northern Ireland. The Genealogical Office is now part of the National Library of Ireland, and the Chief Herald still grants arms.

Two episodes are worth knowing, because honest sources mention them and promotional ones do not.

Confirmations of arms. For decades the office issued "confirmations" to people who could show descent from someone recorded as bearing arms. The practice was reviewed and discontinued in 2005 after its statutory basis was questioned. A confirmation issued before then is a real document; the practice no longer exists.

Chiefs of the Name. The Chief Herald gave courtesy recognition to Gaelic chiefs from 1943. The scheme was suspended in 2003 after one recognised chief, the self-styled MacCarthy Mór, was exposed as having fabricated his entire pedigree. It is a cautionary tale about how far a good story can travel unchecked.

The received wisdom is that Irish records burned in 1922. The truth is more specific and much more useful.

The Public Record Office of Ireland, at the Four Courts, was destroyed in June 1922, taking most pre-1900 census returns, a great many wills and Church of Ireland parish registers with it.

But the Genealogical Office records survived — they were held separately, in Dublin Castle. So did Catholic parish registers, held by the parishes; the Registry of Deeds, established 1708; Griffith's Valuation of 1847–64; the Tithe Applotment Books; and the 1901 and 1911 censuses, which are online and free.

Irish research is harder than English research. It is not impossible, and the heraldic record in particular came through intact.

• The Red Hand — Lámh Dhearg, a red left hand couped at the wrist, on silver. Associated with the O'Neills and through them with Ulster. The legend of the boat race and the severed hand is folklore; the emblem's association with the Uí Néill is documented. It was later taken into the badge of a baronet of Ulster, created by James I in 1611, which is why baronets across Britain and Ireland bear a red hand to this day.
• The harp — the arms of Ireland itself, Azure, a harp Or stringed Argent, in use since the sixteenth century and still the state emblem of the Republic.
• The Irish wolfhound — a genuinely Irish charge, usually as a supporter.
• Lions and eagles — common in Gaelic arms, often derived from a claimed royal descent.
• The saltire of the Fitzgeralds — Argent, a saltire Gules, one of the plainest and most recognisable shields in Ireland, and the origin of the Geraldine cross seen across Munster and Leinster.
• The shamrock — a national emblem but rarely a heraldic charge. If a "family crest" leans heavily on shamrocks, it is decorating for an American audience rather than reporting a record.

The prefixes carry information, and anglicisation stripped most of it out.

• Ó (older Ua) means "grandson" or "descendant of" — Ó Súilleabháin, descendant of Súilleabhán. Anglicised as O' or dropped entirely.
• Mac means "son of" — Mac Cárthaigh, son of Cárthach.
• Ní and Nic are the female forms — a daughter is Ní Bhriain, not Ó Briain.
• Fitz, from Norman French fils, is the Hiberno-Norman equivalent: Fitzgerald, Fitzpatrick, Fitzmaurice.

Under the penal laws and through the eighteenth century, prefixes were widely dropped — Ó Súilleabháin became Sullivan, Mac Cárthaigh became Carthy or McCarthy. Many were restored in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, often to families that had lost them generations before. So the presence or absence of an O' tells you about the nineteenth century, not the tenth.

Anglicisation also merged distinct names. Murphy, the commonest surname in Ireland, comes from at least two unrelated Gaelic originals, Ó Murchadha and Mac Murchadha, in several different territories. There is no single Murphy family and there is no single Murphy coat of arms.

• Burke's General Armory — covers Irish as well as British arms, by surname. Free.
• The Genealogical Office manuscripts at the National Library of Ireland, including the Ulster King of Arms records from the sixteenth century.
• Griffith's Valuation (1847–64) and the Tithe Applotment Books — the closest thing to a census for the period the census does not cover, and both free online.
• The 1901 and 1911 censuses, digitised and free at the National Archives of Ireland.
• Catholic parish registers, digitised and free at the National Library.

Irish descent is reported by tens of millions of people in the United States — consistently among the largest reported ancestries — with large populations also in Britain, Canada, Australia and Argentina.

The heraldic consequence is a market: no surname on earth has more "family crest" products attached to it than an Irish one. Our guide to verifying a coat of arms is worth reading before buying one from anybody, us included.

The Heritage Volume sets out what the historical record holds for a surname — where it comes from, what it meant in Irish, where its bearers were concentrated, and the arms associated with it. How Your Report Is Made explains which parts come from public records and which our system builds.

Display the arms in a framed coat of arms, or carry the crest on a signet ring.