Arms of Irish Septs

Acknowledgements

ot all ancient Irish families have traditional arms recorded in authoritative heraldic sources. The Genealogical Office in Dublin, formerly known as the Office of Arms, is of course the principal source for such information. Grants and even Confirmations of Arms to individual members of a sept do not give to other persons of the same name, not included in the terms of the grant or confirmation, any right to use such arms.

There are, however, a number of coats of arms on record which by custom are regarded as appertaining to all members of a sept. 

At this point it would be well to consider what we mean by the term "sept" - the word "clan" has been avoided because its use might imply the existence in Ireland of a clan system like that so highly developed in Scotland, which in fact we never had in Ireland. The term "sept" has never, as far as I know, been given an authoritative technical definition. 

The term "sept" can perhaps best be explained by saying that it is a collective term describing a group of persons who, along with their immediate and known ancestors, bore a common surname and inhabited the same locality.

Some danger exists of persons not of the true ancestry of a sept being inextricably identified with it. There is no doubt that up to the middle of the seventeenth century many of the laboring class had no hereditary surnames. This is referred to here only to indicate a possible objection to a wide interpretation of sept arms, namely that "serfs" (as they have been called in this connection) may, when the practice of using transitory surnames died out, have assumed as their permanent surnames those of their masters, rather in the same way as the slaves of the plantations in the West Indies sometimes assumed planter surnames. While this contention is not without substance, the consensus of opinion is that such assumption was not at all widespread. 

The elasticity inherent in the concept of sept arms is repugnant to British heraldic practice. In England armorial bearings are held to emanate from the sovereign and are hereditary, though devoid of sanctions to protect what may be regarded as a family heirloom and personal property.  In Scotland the right to bear arms is strictly regulated by law; and on the Continent, again, heraldic usage differs considerably from British. 

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Ulster King of Arms (as the head of the Irish Office of Arms in Dublin was called) who derived his authority, like Garter and Lyon, from the King of Great Britain and Ireland, continued to exercise his functions in Ireland until March 31, 1943, when his office was transferred to the Government of Ireland and has since been known as the Genealogical Office, its head being entitled Chief Herald of Ireland. This transfer took place more than twenty years after the establishment of the Irish Free State.

On taking over we were at first inclined to adopt the British attitude in heraldic matters; but after a few years the particular conditions existing in Ireland, politically and historically, induced a modification of outlook, especially in regard to sept arms. 

In England and Scotland all arms to be found in the records of the heraldic authorities, if not extinct, can be claimed by certain specific individuals. Sept arms, as recorded in the Office of Arms in Dublin Castle somewhat loosely to be regarded as appertaining to all members of the sept. The peculiar circumstances of Ireland, it may be added, were recognized two centuries before the transfer to an Irish authority took place, since Confirmations of Arms, based on use, were issued in Ireland, but not in Great Britain where settled conditions existed. 

It must be emphasized that the acceptance of the principle of sept arms in no way implies that arms appertain to a surname as such. It does not mean, for example, that every man called Kelly or O'Kelly may legitimately use the well-known arms of O'Kelly of Uí Maine. There were several distinct septs of O'Kelly; and O'Kellys of the Meath or Kilkenny septs have no better title to the said arms than a Murphy or an O'Brien. No one, however, can reasonably object to an O'Kelly taking a proprietary interest in those arms, provided that he is unquestionably of a family originating in the O'Kelly country in Connacht.

Briefly, then, the position is that many Irish coats of arms may be displayed without impropriety by any person of the sept indicated if he really does belong to that sept.

Nevertheless anyone wishing to bear arms in the true heraldic sense, e.g. to have them inscribed on silver or seal or in stone carving, would be well advised to apply for a Confirmation of such arms from the Chief Herald of Ireland, which can be obtained at a moderate fee on production of evidence of descent. Corroborative evidence of "user" is also required in all cases where the proof afforded by descent is inadequate. Searches to obtain such evidence are undertaken by the Genealogical Office.

Aherne, McAuliffe, McAuley (McAwley), Barrett (Cork), Barry, O'Beirne, Blake, Boland, Boylan, Boyle, Brady, Brennan (Connacht), Brennan (Ossory), O'Brien, Broder(ick), Browne (Galway), Burke, Butler, Byrne

McCabe, Cahill, Callaghan, McCann, O'Carroll (Ely), McCarten, McCarthy, Casey, Cassidy, Clancy, Clery, Coffey (Cork), Coghlan, Colgan, Concannon, Condon, O'Connell, O'Connor (five septs - Don, Faly, Kerry, Sligo and Corcomroe), Connolly, Conry (Offaly), Conroy (Mulconry, King), Considine, Corrigan, Costello, Cotter, Creagh, Crean, Crowley, Cullane (Collins), Cullen, Cullinan, Curtin, Cusack

Dalton, Daly, Darcy, Davoren, O'Dea, Dempsey, McDermot, Dillon, Dinneen, Doherty, Donlevy, McDonnell (Clare and Connaught), McDonnell (of the Glens), O'Donnell, Donnellon (Donlon), Donnelly, McDonogh, Donohue, Donovan, Doran, O'Dowd, Doyle, Driscoll, Duggan, Dunne, O'Dwyer, Egan, McEnchroe (Crowe), McEniry (Henry), McEvoy, Fagan, Fahy, Fallon, Farrell, Finnegan, Fitzgerald, Fitzgibbon, Fitspatrick, Flaherty, Flanagan, Fleming, Flynn, Fogarty, Fox (from Kearney), French (Galway), Friel

O'Gallagher, Galvin, O'Gara, McGarry, Garvey, Guinness (McGuinness, Magennis, McGenis), Geoghegan, Geraghty, Gilfoyle, McGillycuddy, Gorman (Mc and O'), Gormley, McGovern (Magauran), Grady,, McGrath, Griffin (O'Griffy), McGuire (Maguire), Hackett, O'Hagan, Halloran, O'Hanlon, Hanly, Hannon, Hanraghty, O'Hara, Hary, Hartagan, O'Hea (Hayes, Hughes), Heffernan, Hegarty, Hennessy, Hynes (O'Heyne, Hynds), Hickey, Higgins (O'Higgin), Hogan, Holohan, Horan, McHugh, Hurley, McInerney

Jordan (McSurtain), Joyce, Kavanagh (Cavanagh), Keane (O'Cahan), Kearney, Keating, O'Keeffe, O'Kelly (Uí Maine), McKenna, Kennedy, Keogh (Connacht), McKeown, Kieran (Kearns), Kinneally (Munster), Kinsella, Kirwan, Lacy (de Lacy), Lally (Mullally), Lawlor (Lalor), O'Leary, Lonergan, O'Loughlin, McLoughlin (formerly O'Melaghlin), McLoughlin (Tirconnel), Lynch (Galway), McLysaght

Madden, McMahon (Oriel), McMahon (Thomond), O'Mahony, O'Malley, Malone, Mangan, McManus, Martin (Galway), Meagher (Maher), O'Meara, Meehan, Molloy (Mulloy), Moloney, Monaghan, Mooney, Moran, O'More (Moore), Moriarty, Moroney, Morris (Morrison, Galway), O'Mullen, Mulvihil, Murphy (Muskerry), Murphy (O'Morchoe, Wexford), McMurrough, Naughton (Naghten), Nagle, McNally, McNamara, Neilon (Nealon), O'Neill

Nolan, Nugent, Phelan (Whelan, Felan), Plunkett, Power, Purcell (of Loughmoe), Quigley (Cogley, Kegley), McQuillan, Quinn (Annaly), Quinn (Thomond), Quinlan, Rafferty, McRannall (Reynolds), Redmond, Regan (Reagan), Reilly, Riordan, Roche, O'Rourke, Ryan (Mulrian), Scanlan, Shanly, Shaughnessy, O'Shea, Sheehan, Sheehy, Sheridan, Shiel (Shields), O'Sullivan Mór, O'Sullivan Beare, Sweeney, Taaffe, McTiernan, O'Tierney, Tobin, O'Toole, Troy (Trehy), Tully (McAtilla), Wall, Walsh (Iverk) and Woulfe.

Most of the arms recorded at this time seem to have been "sept arms" or "arms of chieftainship." In other words, they don't appear to be the private property of a particular individual but belonged to either the sept as a whole or to the chief, possibly as symbol of his office. 

The evidence for this is that the arms were undifferenced. (Differencing was the practice of changing a color or adding some symbol to the family arms to personalize it and thereby distinguish it from your father's, grandfather's, brother's, etc. In English heraldry there were fairly elaborate rules about how a cadet line was to do this.) 

In Gaelic Irish custom, the chieftainship would not necessarily pass to the eldest son in primogeniture, but to the most qualified family member, who might be a younger son, a brother, a cousin, etc., of the same name. Presumably, the arms could or would be passed along in the same way.

The fact that these Gaelic Irish arms did not show "differencing" seems to indicate that all members of these Gaelic ruling families may have felt that they had an right equal ownership or use of the arms (which may have, after all, incorporated their ancient clan symbols). 

Certainly this attitude of ownership would be consistent with their attitude that all prominent family members had an equal right to succeed to the chieftainship.

Another alternative interpretation is that the arms, especially if they were based on ancient clan symbols, were already common to all members of the clan or sept. Or maybe they were common to all the members of the ruling elite of the sept (on a practical basis, the more humble relations would have little use for them anyway). 

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It seems unlikely that the arms were the personal property of the chief and that other family members, some of them fairly distant cousins, could just assume the arms of the chief without consequences. Because the ownership of arms was so important to status, the Chief would have objected. Such an inappropriate assumption of arms would have amounted to a direct attack on his status and prerogatives. 

Like any aristocrat, a Chief could be expected to be very touchy about these things. And there was even an office, Ulster King of Arms, for the Chief to appeal to. Significantly, this does not seem to be just the case of just a single chief allowing a liberal viewpoint with a handful of close relatives within his sept. There seem to have been hundreds of individuals claiming the right to arms at this time. 

It seems highly possible that either: (1) the arms had already been in use by these people for some time, so it was too late for the Chief to complain, or (2) the arms did not personally belong to the Chief, so he had no reason to complain, or (3) the arms were so obviously based on the ancient clan symbol that there could be no realistic objection. 

There maybe another possibility. Maybe the Gaelic Irish gentry held the English heraldic system in such low esteem that nobody much cared or objected to anyone using any arms he wanted. Whatever was happening here, certainly there must some kind of peer pressure or peer acceptance working in the Gaelic community at this time.

 The very idea of clan or sept arms would be a challenge to the English system of heraldry. There is no way around this conflict because it is based on a basically different views of inheritance - tanistry versus primogeniture. 

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Irish warriors in the 16th century
commonly carried distinctive ring-hilt swords

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