The Claddagh Ring

 The traditional wedding ring of the Irish since the 17th Century, the Royal Claddagh ring is today worn as a universal symbol of love, loyalty, friendship and fidelity, and of their Irish heritage.

 For love, we wear the heart. In friendship, we wear the hands. And, in loyalty and lasting fidelity: we wear the crown.

 If the ring is worn on the right hand, with crown and heart facing out, this symolizes that the wearer's heart is yet to be won. While dating and under love's spell it is worn with heart and crown facing inwards (still on the right hand.) Wearing the ring on the left hand, with the crown and heart facing inwards, signifies that your love has been given to one, and only one through marriage.

 An original symbol of the "Fisher Kings" of Ireland's Galway town of Claddagh, it was first fashioned into the traditional ring back in the 17th Century during the reign of Mary II.

Legend has it that Richard Joyce, bound for the West Indian slave plantations was kidnapped by a band of Mediterranean pirates and sold to a learned Moorish goldsmith who over the many long years of Joyce's exile helped him perfect the skills of a master craftsman. When in 1689 King William III negotiated the return of the slaves, Joyce returned to Galway - despite the master goldsmith's offer of his daughter's hand in marriage and a princely dowry of half of all his wealth.

Back in Ireland a young women had never stopped faithful waiting for her true love to return. Upon which time when he presented her with the now famous Royal Claddagh gold ring - a symbol of their enduring love. Two hands to represent their friendship, the crown to signify their loyalty and lasting fidelity, and the sign of the heart to symbolize eternal love for each other.

"Several individuals of this name have long felt grateful to the memory of William III. from the following circumstance, on the accession of that monarch to the throne of England. One of the first acts of his reign was to send an ambassador to Algiers to demand the immediate release of all the British subjects detained there in slavery, the dey and council, intimidated, reluctantly complied with this demand. Among those released, was a young man of the name of Joyes, a native of Galway, who, fourteen years before, was captured on his passage to the West Indies, by an Algerine Corsair; on his arrival at Algiers, he was purchased by a wealthy Turk who followed the profession of a goldsmith, and who observing his slave, Joyes, to be tractable and ingenious, instructed him in his trade in which he speedily became adept. The Moor, as soon as he heard of his release, offered him, in case he should remain, his only daughter in marriage, and with her, half his property, but all these, with other tempting and advantageous proposals, Joyes resolutely declined; on his return to Galway, married his true love and followed the business of a goldsmith with considerable success"  - James Hardiman, The History of the Town and County of the Town of Galway.

 Traditionally handed down from mother to daughter the Royal Claddagh ring has also become a symbol of our ties with the past and generations gone by.  Irish people remember the many  who had to leave Ireland with nothing but their lives during the Great Famine of the 19th Century - many leaving from Cork harbour to make the long voyage across the Atlantic to America. The gold Royal Claddagh ring was to become an enduring link with their home country and practically their only savings and family inheritance.