I Had A Great Time

I had a great time Thursday night (March 16) talking about doing genealogical research in New England to the Williamson County (Texas) Genealogy Society!

There were even some transplanted New Englanders there. One of them asked me a couple of questions before the meeting, trying to sound out whether or not I knew what I was going to be talking about. You'll be happy to know that I passed!

And I talked with a couple of sisters afterwards whose relative, it turns out, had performed the marriage of my great-great-grandparents. It really is a small world!

Oh, yeah, this is a blog about heraldry. Well, in honor of St. Patrick's Day the next day, that night I wore the tie that I purchased in Dublin, Ireland, which is strewn with the arms of the four provinces of Ireland (Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connaught).

I generally do not wear green on St. Patrick's Day. As a descendant of the Connors and Callahans of County Cork (and AncestryDNA confirms I am 16% Irish), I feel justified in believing that I should be exempt from "the wearin' o' the green." And to quote from one of my favorite philosophers, the inimitable Mr. Dooley (a creation of Chicago journalist Finley Peter Dunne around the turn of the last century):

"Patrick's Day?" said Mr. Dooley. "Patrick's Day? It seems to me I've heard th' name befure. Oh, ye mane th' day th' low Irish that hasn't anny votes cillybrates th' birth iv their naytional saint, who was a Fr-frinchman."

(And yes, I know that Patrick was not a Frenchman. So I'll not be havin' a whole passel o' commentary about his thrue birthplace an' all that, or I'll be takin' me big shillelagh stick to yer, understand?)

So, anyway, I had a great time with the many members of the Williamson County Genealogy Society, and look forward to the opportunity to visit them again.

It's NOT a "Crest"!

Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!

It's just that while trying to read this really great story from last week, they (or, at least, writer Christy Parker) kept referring to this ship's badge as a "crest," which it isn't, and it just kept raising my blood pressure every time they referred to it as that. (And they did so a lot in this story.)

Anyway, the good news is that one (of two known examples) of the ship's badge of the Maltese heritage site Fort St. Angelo, one of two such forts designated as "stone frigates" by the Royal Navy, has been found in Ireland and is being returned to Malta to the naval museum there.

Fort St. Angelo was classified as HMS Edgmont in 1912, and became HMS St. Angelo in 1933. The fort became the property of Malta in 1979 and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The metal casting of the badge (mounted, as you can see above, on a wooden plaque) was created shortly before or during WWII. It was discovered in an antique chest of drawers brought from England to south Tipperary by a returning emigrant, and remained there for some twenty years. Then Michael Faul, an inspector of fisheries, acquired it and it sat in his garage for another 25 years. From him it passed to David Cooley (on the right in the photo above), who three years later asked local businessman Hugh Carson to research its history.

On learning of its origins, it was determined to return the ship's badge to Malta, which is being done now through the offices of the Irish Navy on the ship LÉ James Joyce.

It's a great story, the repatriation of an historical piece of heraldry to the place where it belongs. I just wish they'd not called it a "crest" so many times.

You can read the whole July 26, 2016 story on-line at the website of the Irish Examiner at http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/irish-navy-to-return-historic-fort-crest-to-malta-after-60-years-412359.html#

Just take your blood pressure medication first!

In Honor of International Heraldry Day

In honor of International Heraldry Day today, I changed my profile picture on Facebook to this shot of me wearing the only hat that I could find in Dublin, Ireland with a coat of arms on it.

The shield is, of course, the arms of Dublin.

But to think that I had to buy this to get some "wearable heraldry."  (Aside from the tie that I found there with the arms of the four provinces of Connacht, Leinster, Munster, and Ulster scattered regularly across it.)  Still, the bells hanging from the tips of the horns are a nice touch, don't you think?  Not to mention the blue braids.

"Trashy" Heraldry

In a Facebook post last week, Stan Zamyatin shared Heraldry Ireland : Araltas Éireann's photo to the group International Heraldry Society, with the comment “The arms of Bizerte, Tunisia - nice to see the arms on display in a country of little heraldry, even if it is on a rubbish bin.”

I have to agree completely with the first part of his comment, but, frankly, the placement of heraldry on trash bins (and manhole covers, for that matter) has a history in Ireland at the very least, as the following photographs from Dublin with the arms of city will demonstrate:

And here's a flower planter from Kilkenny, which at least raises the bar from trash bins a little:

Does Dublin Need "An Updated Coat of Arms"?

I ran across an article last last week (October 9, 2014) entitled "Time to tell Dublin's old motto: `You're fired'" by Frank McNally.  Mr. McNally seems to feel that because (1) Dublin's coat of arms is some 400 years old, and (2) "nobody - not even City Hall - now knows which castles they're supposed to be, or indeed whether they're castles at all," that it may be time for Dublin to adopt something new as its emblem.

As an academic herald I, of course, disagree.  But still ...

Mr. McNally does have some good points in his article, which I am not going to repeat here. (He also speculates about the origins of the flames.) You can read the entire thing yourself on the website of The Irish Times at http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/time-to-tell-dublin-s-old-motto-you-re-fired-1.1956569)  It is worth noting, for example, that no one seems to be sure whether those are really castles on the arms, or if they're supposed to be a portion of the old city wall, or even if there really three castles or simply one being reproduced three times.  And what about the flames?  (The words of the old Billy Joel song come to mind: "We didn't start the fire.")  So, by all means, go read what he has to say.  But ....

I would note that Dublin's coat of arms is a pretty simple one considering it's for a city; such things can be quite complex, and some entirely horrendous.  Dublin's, on the other hand - Azure three triply-towered castles argent, the towers enflamed proper - are simple and immediately identifiable as what they are, in color or in monochrome.  Do I think they need to be changed, or updated, or modernized?  No, no I don't.

Plus, you can find them everywhere about the city, from buildings to bike racks, to lamp posts and trash bins, and city trucks to manhole covers.  The following are some of them that I was able to photograph during our stay in Dublin in 2002.  I think that some of them are great examples of what can be done to "modernize" or make a logo out of a classic coat of arms without the need to actually change them for a logo (with all of the accompanying design fees!).  See if you agree.

Herald in the News!

It’s always especially fun to run across an article about someone I know.  I first met Frederick G. “Fred” Brownell of South Africa in 1996 when we each attended the International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences that was held in Ottawa, Canada that year.

Our paths crossed again by mail a little later when, having been invited to attend 1997’s International Congress of Vexillology but being unable to go, my wife Jo Ann and I obtained and sent to him for the Congress a U.S. flag that had been flown over the Capitol Building in Washington DC and a Texas state flag that had been flown over the State Capitol Building in Austin, Texas, along with a U.S. flag lapel pin for him.  A while later I had another opportunity to write him that I had wanted to acquire a copy of his book, National and Provincial Symbols of the Republic of South Africa, but hadn’t been able to find one anywhere at the time, and inquiries to his publisher had received no response, and could he tell me where I could purchase a copy.  (I received an autographed copy from him at the following Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences in Besançon, France by way of the Deputy State Herald, Marcel van Rossum, who was attending that year’s conference in his stead.)

We met up with Fred again a while later at the Congresses in Dublin in 2004, which he attended along with his daughter Heather, and in Quebec City in 2008.  He is the sweetest man, intelligent, knowledgeable about both heraldry and his greater love, flags, and I could, and probably did, listen to him for hours.

Here’s a picture of Fred and Marcel (the tall fellow on the right), along with Jo Ann (next to Napoleon)and myself and a friend of ours from Chicago, Bess Schulmeister (on the right), just after we’d all had lunch together at a restaurant, The Napoleon, in Quebec City.  We decided we just had to get our picture taken with the great man for whom the restaurant was named, don’t you know.

Anyway, with all that as background, it was a thrill earlier this week to run across an article (dated April 26, 2014) on the BBC News Magazine website about him entitled “Fred Brownell: The man who made South Africa's flag.”  Fred designed the current flag of South Africa (as well as the flag of Namibia.  He's a prolific and talented man).  It’s a great article, because not only does it give you an idea of some of the character of the man, but it gives the history and evolution of the design that was eventually accepted as the nation’s new flag, which is not something that I heard him ever talk much about.  (He’s really a very humble person, although you could tell that he was proud that his design had become the official flag of his country.)

So anyway, please feel free to click on the link here and learn a little more about Fred Brownell, formerly the State Herald of South Africa, designer of the flags of two countries, and a really, really nice guy, at http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27155475

American Revolution Heraldry

I've said it many times before, and I'll probably say it many times in the future: "You can find heraldry everywhere!"

In this case, I was reading the Boston 1776 blog which is about, you guessed it, Boston, Massachusetts in and around the year 1776.  And there, big as life, was a bit of heraldry on my computer screen.

The post was about a demonstration at the Paul Revere House by Fred Lawson, a founder of the Royal Irish Artillery reenacting group.  (The full post can be read at http://boston1775.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-royal-irish-artillery-at-revere.html)  Accompanying the post was the above photograph of an officer's button with the arms of the Royal Regiment of Irish Artillery, dated 1785-1801.

According to the post, seventy men from this unit were transferred into the Royal Artillery to accompany General John Burgoyne's expedition down from Canada in 1777.  They were captured by American forces following the battle of Saratoga.

The button (which is available for purchase from The Military Campaign at http://www.themilitarycampaign.co.uk/badges/product/296-royal-regiment-of-irish-artillery) shows the arms of the Royal Regiment of Irish Artillery.  I have not found a color emblazon of the arms anywher, but I would assume that the field is azure (blue) with the golden harp of Ireland; the cannon would be either gold or silver, as would the chief, which has the Royal crown (normally gold) and two roundels representing cannonballs (probably black, which are sometimes blazoned, appropriately enough, as gunstones, though they have also been blazoned as pellets and as ogresses).  Were I to guess at a blazon, I believe it would most likely be: Azure, in pale an Irish harp Or stringed Argent and a cannon Or [or Argent], on a chief Argent the Royal crown Or between two gunstones [or, roundels Sable].

Whether my speculative blazon is correct or not, it was still a neat bit of historical heraldry that played a role in the American Revolutionary War.

Heraldry Education on the Internet

The National Library of Ireland, in conjunction with an exhibition, has created and placed on-line an Educational Resource Pack for teachers entitled “Design Your Own Coat of Arms.”  Using the Resource Pack, teachers can recap what their students learned in the exhibition and then have them (the students) create their own coat of arms.  The Pack is short, only seven pages, but includes a blank motto scroll and blank shield to fill in.

It is certainly not comprehensive (I did note that it was only seven pages, didn’t I?), but could be a fun activity for pre-teenagers who are learning about heraldry for the first time.

The Educational Resource Pack can be found on-line at: www.nli.ie/heraldry_site/DesignyourownCoatofArms.pdf

Heraldry in Florence, Part Twenty-Nine

There’s another place in Florence where one can see a bit of non-Italian heraldry. It’s real name is the Cimitero Protestante de Porta a' Pinti, the Protestant Cemetery, but it is more commonly known as “The English Cemetery.” It’s a place where non-Catholics, many of whom were English, could be buried when they died in the city, including its most famous resident, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It’s kind of a cool place to visit. It sits on a raised island completely surrounded by busy streets.

Anyway, some of the monuments there have carved coats of arms on them, and I thought you might be interested in seeing a few of them. As with so much else of the heraldry in Florence, the arms here are only a sampling of what we found there.

 Lieut. General John Locke of Newcastle, Ireland, d. 28 February 1837.  Per fess azure and or, a pale counterchanged, three hawks with wings endorsed or.  Crest: A hawk with wings endorsed holding in the beak a padlock or.  (Per Burke's General Armory.)

Le Vicomte Henri de la Belinaye, b. London 19 November 1799, d. Florence 9 January 1873.  Argent three ram's heads cabossed sable.  (Per Rietstap's Armorial Général.)

Bentink Yelverton [1792-1837] and his wife the Hon. Anna Bingham [d. 1855, eldest daughter of John Bingham, 1st Baron Clanmorris of Newbrook, County Mayo]. There is an article which outlines the life of Bentinck Walter Yelverton on-line at http://www.florin.ms/yelvertons.html  The arms here are a bit hard to parse.  Burke gives several coats of arms for Yelverton; the closest is Argent, three lions rampant gules armed and langued azure on a chief gules a crescent argent.  The arms on the sinister side of the shield are not those of Bingham, Baron Clanmoreeis, which have a charged fess between three mullets, but appear to be those of Bingham of Bingham Castle, County Mayo, Azure a bend cotised between six crosses patty argent.  (The crosses are not so easy to see in the picture here, but they are quite clear in the original high-resolution photo.)  (Identification of the Bingham arms is from O'Laughlin's The Irish Book of Arms.)

Martha Rebecca, wife of James Moore, Esq. of Strandfield, County Louth [Ireland].  Vert a lion rampant and in chief three mullets or.  Crest: A hand lying fessways couped at the wrist holding a sword erect impaling three gory heads all proper.  (Burke's General Armory.)

William Somerville, eldest son of the historian of Queen Anne, b. Minto, Roxburghshire [Scotland] 22 April 1771, d. Florence 25 June 1860.  These are impaled arms.  The Moore coat is Azure three mullets two and one between seven crosses crosslet fitchy three, one, two and one or.  Crest: A dragon vert spouting fire proper standing on a wheel argent.  (Burke's General Armory.)  Somerville's wife was Mary Fairfax, the Scottish mathematician and astronomer.  (She is buried in Naples.)  The closest arms to the image here for Fairfax in Burke are: Argent three bars gemelles gules surmounted by a lion rampant sable.  (Other coats for Fairfax reverse the tinctures of the bars and lion.)  The bars do not appear behind the lion here (not even in the high-resolution image), but that could simply be an error.

Heraldry in Florence, Part Twenty-Two

With all the heraldry we saw in our perambulations (now there's a word I don't get to use in everyday conversation!) about the city of Florence, every once in a while we would run across a coat of arms (or, as here, three.  No, wait!  Four!) that were surprising if only because they seemed so far from home.  As we strolled down the Via Alfonso la Marmora we came upon a church with a square bell tower which had several coats of arms carved on its sides.

So far, not much out of the ordinary, right?  Then we got close enough to identify those coats.  On three sides of the tower were the arms of Ireland (Azure a harp or stringed azure), Scotland (Or a lion rampant within a double-tressure flory-counteryflory gules), and England (Gules three lions passant guardant in pale or)!

The explanation for the presence of these coats of arms was discovered after turning the corner where the Via Marmora meets the Via Per Antonio Micheli.  Number 26 at the corner is the Chiesa Evangelica Valdese, the Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity (Chiesa Anglicana della Trinitá).

And as if the sign were not sufficient explanation, one of the coats of arms flanking the main door was that of the Archepiscopal See of Canterbury (Azure a pastoral staff or ensigned with a cross patty surmounted by a pallium argent fimbriated and fringed or charged with four crosses patty fitchy sable.)

So, maybe not quite so out of place as they originally seemed when we first saw them while walking down the street in Florence.

O. M. G.!

I ran across a brief note about this little site (http://holistic.ie/wpg2-2?g2_itemId=1581) of someone who does original "family crests".  The fact that the URL is at "holistic.ie" should give you an inkling of the kind of "New Age" work the artist does.  But it was the blurb under the heading "Family Crests" (well, okay, along with the examples of his work) that really did it for me:

Through spontaneous revelation Ahonu paints your family crest without a history of distortion, struggle, sacrifice or battle. He tunes into the original soul essence of your family name BEFORE there was any damage or distortion. For those that have had the privilege of having their new Family Crest re-created by Ahonu, there have been immediate shifts in outer circumstances:- Prosperity increased, old rivalries and patterns cleared, and feelings of joy and personal power were immediate. Order yours ... now.

Umm, no.  Here, let me think about that some more.

Nope.  Still no.

But don't let my bad attitude stop you from dropping by his website and checking out his work.  Just be prepared -- it doesn't look like heraldry, with or without "distortion, struggle, sacrifice or battle."

Why Heraldry?

In a recent (April 18, 2010) post on his blog, Roger Derham’s Windsong (http://deworde.blogspot.com/2010/04/blazon.html), blogger, gynecologist and forensic examiner Roger Derham talked about his design for a coat of arms (well, okay, he actually designed a complete achievement of arms, but let’s not pick too many nits here) for CASATS, the Children and Adolescents Sexual Assault Treatment Service in Galway, Ireland, where he lives and works. Taking everything into consideration, I think it’s not that bad a design, and certainly the charges and overall arrangement are well in keeping with the traditions of Irish heraldry. (I’d debate him about some of the choices of tinctures: or does not show up that well against an argent field; and the or bordure on the inescutcheon is impossible to see even in the largest image I was able to find, leaving me having to take his word for it that it’s there.) But he gives his rationale for each element in the design, and it seems to me that he did a good job of putting it all together in a meaningful fashion.

But what struck me the most is his take on why use heraldry? He said:

From the cartouches of ancient Egypt to the shields of medieval knights I have always been fascinated by the construct, seeming permanence and visual history of these physical marks of identification, of remembrance of people long dead.

“Construct,” “seeming permanence” and “visual history,” “identification” and “remembrance.” Exactly! Those are precisely some of the reasons why I have had, and continue to have, a deep-seated interest in heraldry. But he’s said it so much better, and more concisely, than I have. My hat is off to you, sir!

It’s Everywhere! It’s Everywhere!

I know that I’ve said this before, but periodically I have it confirmed, that you can find heraldry just about anywhere and everywhere. A recent case in point:

I was riding the elevator up to my work one day last week. (We’re now on the seventh floor of an eight-story building. When we were down on the fourth floor, I’d usually just walk up the stairs, telling myself that I needed the exercise. But seven is just a little too far to go. I kept having visions of someone finding my dead of a heart attack body in the stairwell somewhere between the fifth and sixth floors, so I take the elevator now.)

Anyway, someone else in the elevator was going to the sixth floor, and when the doors opened there for them to leave, I noticed a new office (so new that their number plate is a hand-lettered half sheet of paper) that had a framed grant of arms hanging on the wall in their reception area. So, of course, I did a quick double-take before the doors closed, since I just wasn’t expecting to see a grant of arms hanging up in the building where I work. And then made a mental note to myself to bring my camera to work and go down and ask if I might take some photographs.

A couple of days later I had my camera with me, and went down to the sixth floor office, identified myself as (1) someone who worked just upstairs, and (2) as someone with a strong interest in heraldry (while giving the receptionist one of my Appleton Studios business cards), and asked if I might take some pictures of the grant. The receptionist called back to her boss and passed along my request. Permission being given (and I’d told them I would post one or two pictures on this blog), here are a couple of pictures for you of the grant of arms made April 19, 1985, by Donal Begley, then Chief Herald of Ireland, to Hugh Corrigan IV, attorney at law of Dallas, Texas. (The sprig of maple leaves in base on the mullet of eight points goes to the fact that Mr. Corrigan’s ancestor, Patrick Corrigan, emigrated from Ireland in 1832 to Canada.)

Mr. Corrigan has been very involved in researching his own genealogy and, from some of the entries I’ve seen by him or acknowledging his assistance, in helping others with their own genealogy on lines related to his. It was apparently after his having done a fair bit of this research that he decided to apply to the Chief Herald of Ireland for a grant of arms. And, of course, to pass along to his family.

But, my goodness, what a great thing to find on the way to work one day. It just goes to show once again that you can find heraldry everywhere.

Heraldry in the News

A recent article in the Trinity News gives an identification of the various coats of arms on Trinity College’s Campanile (a freestanding bell tower) which is placed so prominently in the main square of the College in Dublin, Ireland. Each of the coats of arms is identified and their blazons given. The article can be found on-line at: http://www.trinitynews.ie/index.php/opinion/editorial/669-old-trinity-the-campaniles-arms-identified

There are some nice photos of the Campanile throughout the seasons at the Ian Russell Art website at http://www.iarchitectures.com/campanile.html

We had the opportunity of staying at Trinity College during the International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences held in Dublin in 2002,* and I can attest to the beauty of the structure. Go by and see it if you are ever in the area. (Be warned, however; the “hallowed cobblestones” there can be murder on your feet. The wearing of very sturdy shoes is recommended.)

* We stayed in the buildings known as “Botany Bay”, which made us the envy of our medievalist friends as we were thus directly across the square from where they keep the Book of Kells, but all I could hear at the time, and since, upon thinking of the words “Botany Bay” is the voice of Chekov in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan going “Botany Bay? Botany Bay! Captain, we must get out of here!!”

Heraldry in the News!

"The Office of the Chief Herald is currently not accepting new applications for grants or confirmations or arms owing to the retirement of the Chief Herald. The application process will resume when a new appointment has been made."  So says an announcement on the website of the National Library of Ireland (of which the Office of the Chief Herald is a part).

The full announcement can be found on the website of the National Library at: http://www.nli.ie/en/heraldry-introduction.aspx

Do They Really Need a New Logo?

The post for May 4, 2009, over at the Cheshire Heraldry Web Journal (http://cheshire-heraldry.org.uk/weblog/) is a great one about the adoption of a new logo by Stirling Castle, and its cost. That posting got me to thinking about the times over the last several years where one organization or another, even some who already had perfectly good coats of arms that they have been using for years to "brand" themselves to the public, pay sometimes ridiculously large amounts of money to some commercial design firm to develop for them a "new," "more contemporary," or "more relevant" logo, with which they often replace their "old", "outdated" coat of arms.

In the example of Stirling Castle, it seems to me that if they really wanted, as they said, to "convey a sense of depth, experience, royal authority, richness and intimacy" of the Castle, they could have used the coat of arms here, which appear on a tapestry right there in the Castle.

I have to wonder, though, if part of the problem doesn’t lie in the fact that many people seem to think that a coat of arms is just like a trademark, in that it absolutely, positively must be drawn exactly the same way every time it appears, no matter what. Because that is clearly not the case, as a minimal amount of study would serve to demonstrate. Take, for example, the coat of arms of the City of Dublin, Ireland. The arms appear in a very traditional fashion on a bicycle rack; in pretty traditional fashion on many of the city’s street lamps, both colored and monochrome (most in silver, but some in gold paint); in a simplified but still fairly traditional version on waste receptacles placed about the city; in a modern, logo style on city-owned services sites and vehicles (again, both colored in blue and white or monochromatic in black and white); and finally in an extremely stylized fashion on metal services access covers on the sidewalk.

And yet, each version, traditional and modernized, is the same coat of arms that the city has used for who knows how many years. (The arms were officially granted in 1607, but elements of it appear in the city seal as early as the 13th Century.) No need to pay some design firm thousands or even hundreds of dollars/Euros/pounds sterling for a new design. Just update the depiction of the coat of arms you already own! (And then take the money you’ve saved and give it back to the taxpayers from whom it came. See? Heraldry can be of positive benefit, even in our modern times.)

Heraldry In The News Update!

Two newspaper articles (found at http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0529/1224247668579.html and at http://www.independent.ie/national-news/new-coat-of-arms-for-ancient-city-1754818.html), note the ceremony held Thursday, May 28, 2009, at which the Chief Herald of Ireland confirmed to the Limerick City Council the right to its coat of arms, which had been used by the city since at least the 17th Century. A rendition of the newly confirmed arms as it appeared in The Irish Times appears below.

Heraldry In The News!

An article in the Irish Times dated May 19, 2009, headlined "Limerick to get offical coat of arms" (found on-line at: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0519/1224246881270.html) notes that after using a coat of arms "since at least the 17th century" but which arms were not registered in all that time, the City of Limerick is having that coat of arms confirmed "on the basis of long use". The images below show what they’ve been using all these centuries: the one on the left is from the website "Heraldry of the World" (formerly "International Civic Heraldry"), and the one on the right is from CivicHeraldry.com.

The Latin motto means "An ancient city well versed in the arts of war."

Of course, granting arms to Limerick leads to limericks about Limerick’s arms. This one by Peter Constantine (slightly edited by me for better "flow") appeared in the rec.heraldry newsgroup the same day:

On a shield of gules (meaning red)
Stands a castle, portcullis rais-ed;
Beneath this a motto
It means not a lot-o
And thusly is Limerick prais-ed.

And a Happy St. Patrick’s Day to You!

"Patrick’s Day?" said Mr. Dooley. "Patrick’s Day? It seems to me I’ve heard th’ name befure. Oh, ye mane th’ day th’ low Irish that hasn’t anny votes cillybrates th’ birth iv their naytional saint, who was a Fr-rinchman."

So spake my own personal guru, Mr. Dooley, a creation of journalist Peter Finley Dunne, some 100-plus years ago.

But it being St. Patrick’s Day today made me remember what might be called the last and the least of the three main British orders of chivalry, the Order of St. Patrick. (The other two being, of course, the Order of the Garter and the Order of the Thistle.) The Order of St. Patrick was founded in 1783 by George III. But the regular creation of knights of the Order ceased with the formation of the Irish Free State as an independent republic in 1922, and no knight at all has been created since 1936. The last surviving knight of the Order of St. Patrick, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, died in 1974. In theory, however, the Order still exists, with the Queen as Sovereign of the Order, and Ulster King of Arms (now combined with Norroy King of Arms) as the officer of the Order.

Pictures of the regalia of the Order of St. Patrick, featuring the cross of St. Patrick (Argent a saltire gules), can be found on-line at http://www.medals.org.uk/united-kingdom/united-kingdom007.htm

And, of course, the stalls of the knights of the Order remain in St. Patrick’s Cathedral (in Gaelic, Árd Eagláis Naomh Pádraig) in Dublin, with the stall plates with their arms affixed to their places, surmounted by their helms and crests, with the banners of their arms above. (Banners of the knights of the Order are also to be found on display in one of the halls at Dublin Castle.) So while the Order of St. Patrick itself may rightly be considered a thing of the past, its heraldry remains to be seen, and hopefully enjoyed, by visitors today. And hopefully also by you, on this St. Patrick’s Day.