Heart and Hands: The Claddagh Ring

GALWAY, Ireland - Over the years, the Claddagh ring - which shows two hands clutching a crowned heart - has been a token of love, a ring of friendship and, at modern times, a symbol of Ireland itself.

In the past

Rings representing two hands, called "fede" or fidelity rings, were worn in the Mediterranean region in the Middle Ages - and traders probably brought the earliest versions to Ireland.

The crown, which appears above the heart, is believed to have been introduced between the 1690s and 1700s by a Galway silversmith named Richard Joyce. (According to James Hardiman's "History of Galway", published in 1821, Mr. Joyce had been captured by pirates in the West Indies and sold as a slave to a Turkish jeweller, who trained him as a goldsmith.)

Image< img alt="The ring's name comes from an area that was once a labyrinthine fishing village, now one of the oldest parts of Galway, on the west coast of Ireland." class="css-r3fift" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/07/05/multimedia/05sp-jewelry-claddagh-inyt2/05sp-jewelry-claddagh-inyt2-articleLarge.jpg? quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale" srcset="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/07/05/multimedia/05sp-jewelry-claddagh-inyt2/05sp-jewelry-claddagh-inyt2-articleLarge.jpg ?quality=75&auto=webp 600w,https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/07/05/multimedia/05sp-jewelry-claddagh-inyt2/05sp-jewelry-claddagh-inyt2-jumbo.jpg?quality= 75&auto=webp 1024w,https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/07/05/multimedia/05sp-jewelry-claddagh-inyt2/05sp-jewelry-claddagh-inyt2-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp 2048w" sizes="((min-width: 600px) and (max-width: 1004px)) 84vw, (min-width: 1005px) 80vw, 100vw" decoding="async" width="600" height="400" />The name of the ring comes from an area that was once a labyrinthine fishing village, now one of the oldest parts of Galway, on the west coast of Ireland.Credit...Karen cox louse r the New York Times

"Although there is no concrete evidence that Richard Joyce was the first person to put the crown in the ring," said Eoin O' Neill, historian and collections manager at the Galway City Museum, "it is safe to say that he is credited with this, as there are no Claddagh rings before the one we have from around 1700 which has this feature . One theory is – because he was freed from slavery in North Africa by William III – the crown was a sign of thanks and gratitude to the king. Back in Galway he set up shop as a goldsmith on Shop Street and over time the people of Claddagh, a labyrinthine fishing village of small thatched cottages just outside the city walls, began to use his version of the ring as wedding rings. By the 1800s, the association was so consistent that the design became known as Claddagh.