SEALS OF IRISH CHIEFS.
By George Petrie, R.H.A., M.R.I.A.
(Concluded from No. 45.)
The next seal which I have to exhibit, belongs to a chief of another and nobler family of Thomond, the O’Briens, kings of the country, and descendants of the celebrated monarch Brian Boru. This seal is also from the collection of the Dean of St Patrick’s, and was purchased a few years since in Roscrea. Its type is unlike the preceding, as, instead of the armed warrior, it presents in the field the figure of a griffin.
The inscription reads, Sigillum: Brian: I Brian.
In the genealogies of this illustrious family, which are remarkable for their minuteness and historical truth, two or three chiefs bearing the Christian name of Brian occur. But from the character of the letters on this seal, I have little hesitation in assigning it to Brian O’Brian, who, according to the Annals of the Four Masters, succeeded to the lordship of Thomond in 1343, and was killed in 1350.
The next seal which I have to exhibit is also from the Dean’s collection, and, though of later date, is on many accounts of still higher interest than perhaps either of the preceding. It is the seal of a chief of the O’Neills, whose family were for seven hundred years the hereditary monarchs of Ireland.
This seal was found about ten years since in the vicinity of Magherafelt, in the county of Derry, and was purchased by the Dean from a shopkeeper in that town some years after. The arms of O’Neill, the bloody hand, appear on a shield, and the legend reads, Sigillum Maurisius [Maurisii] ui Neill. The name Mauritius, which occurs in this inscription, does not occur in the genealogies of the O’Neill family, and is obviously but a latinised form of the name Murtogh or Muircheartach, which was that of two or three chiefs of the family; and of these I am inclined to ascribe this seal to Murtogh Roe, or the Red O’Neill, lord of Clanaboy, who, according to the Annals of the Four Masters, died in 1471.
These are all the seals of Irish princes which have fallen under my observation. But there remain two of equal antiquity, but which belonged to persons of inferior rank, which it may interest the Academy to see. The first, which is in my own collection, exhibits the figure of an animal, which I must leave to the zoologists of the Academy to describe, with the legend Sigillum Mac Craith Mac I Dafid.
The O’Dafys were an ancient family in Thomond, and are still very numerous in the county of Clare.
The next and last is from the cabinet of the Dean, and is very remarkable in having the head of a helmeted warrior cut on a cornelian within the legend, which reads, Sigillum Brian: O’Harny.
The O’Harnys are a very ancient and still numerous family in Kerry, descendants of the ancient lords of that country, and remarkable in history as poets and musicians.
I have only to add, that it will be observed that these seals are all of a round form, which characterises the seals of secular persons, while those belonging to ecclesiastics were usually oval.