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Irish registers now online

Posted: 10 Aug 2014, 15:59
by Arthur Radburn
Something new from the Chief Herald of Ireland. Several volumes of the register have been digitised and are now available on their website :

http://www.nli.ie/en/archive-of-grants-of-arms.aspx -- click on the 'Browse exemplifications' link to go to the database page, then choose 'Recently updated' from the 'sort' options.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a search function to take one directly to a particular entry. One would have to find the volume and folio number from the NLI catalogue first :

http://sources.nli.ie/Record/MS_UR_018474

Re: Irish registers now online

Posted: 15 Aug 2014, 19:02
by Arthur Radburn
A browse through the more recent volumes of the register has revealed some interesting designs and practices ...

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... such as "a bordure on the dexter and the sinister" in the arms of the Gaelic Athletics Association (1999). Has anyone ever seen one of these before?

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And here we have the arms granted to Sir William Deane, governor-general of Australia, in 1999. I wonder what the Queen of Australia thought of her representative accepting arms from a foreign republican government, together with supporters to which he would not have been entitled under the rules applied by the English kings of arms who act as her heraldry authorities.

We can see the advent of gender equality in the volumes for the 1990s and 2000s. In 1997, for instance, arms were granted to a woman and other descendants of her father. She got her arms on a lozenge, without a crest, while a crest was provided for the other descendants of her father. A few years later, though, women's arms are on shields and they get crests and, occasionally, supporters. From 2001, daughters are ranked equally with sons when it comes to differencing arms, and they now all get marks of cadency.

Another detail that emerges is that whereas arms and crests are hereditary, badges (and standards displaying them) nearly always are not, and are only for the lifetime of the grantee.

Re: Irish registers now online

Posted: 15 Aug 2014, 19:27
by Chas Charles-Dunne
As to Sir William Deane, as a governor-general, I think he would have been granted supporters. What he was doing getting arms from Ireland is, on the other hand, rather strange.

Re: Irish registers now online

Posted: 15 Aug 2014, 23:30
by JMcMillan
Chas Charles-Dunne wrote:As to Sir William Deane, as a governor-general, I think he would have been granted supporters. What he was doing getting arms from Ireland is, on the other hand, rather strange.


Why? The Queen he worked for (the Queen of Australia) has no kings of arms to whom he could have applied. From an Australian constitutional perspective, the Chief Herald of Ireland is no more foreign than any other heraldic authority, Garter and Lyon included.

Re: Irish registers now online

Posted: 16 Aug 2014, 06:20
by Chris Green
JMcMillan wrote:
Chas Charles-Dunne wrote:As to Sir William Deane, as a governor-general, I think he would have been granted supporters. What he was doing getting arms from Ireland is, on the other hand, rather strange.

Why? The Queen he worked for (the Queen of Australia) has no kings of arms to whom he could have applied. From an Australian constitutional perspective, the Chief Herald of Ireland is no more foreign than any other heraldic authority, Garter and Lyon included.


Perhaps Geoff Kingman-Sugars can enlighten us as to the reason for Sir William's choice.

Re: Irish registers now online

Posted: 16 Aug 2014, 12:02
by Iain Boyd
Re Sir William Deane -

The fact that the sejant lion is holding a green trefoil suggests that he is of Irish descent - which could be why he approached the Irish authorities.

Regards,

Iain Boyd

Re: Irish registers now online

Posted: 16 Aug 2014, 15:58
by Arthur Radburn
The grant states that the Government of Ireland had petitioned the Chief Herald because it desired to honour Sir William by granting him armorial ensigns. This suggests a similar situation to the Irish government grants of arms to US presidents Kennedy and Clinton, but neither of them received supporters.

Sir William was a Companion of the Order of Australia and a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, but the statutes of those orders do not bestow supporters on members of those particular grades.

The criteria for supporters in Ireland are unclear. The private Heraldry Bill which the Irish Genealogical Society tried, but failed, to get passed some years ago included an outright prohibition on the grant of supporters. Apparently the IGS thought it was contrary to Ireland's democratic republican ethos.

Re: Irish registers now online

Posted: 20 Sep 2014, 20:19
by Frederick Siler
Arthur;
Thanks for the link to new Irish Registers online. I will add it to my Heraldry and Genealogy Reference Library website at:
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~tqpeiffer/
Fred

Re: Irish registers now online

Posted: 10 Nov 2014, 17:35
by Arthur Radburn
A few more volumes of the register have been added to the website, including grants for the periods 1803-48, 1898-1909, and 1978-81.

Re: Irish registers now online

Posted: 10 Jul 2021, 16:24
by Arthur Radburn
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I see that the National Library of Ireland has added some more digitised volumes of grants and confirmations of arms to their website :

* Vol A (1698-1800)
* Vol B (1683-1786)
* Vol C (1800-10)