Rooney, Megan. “Huguenot Refugee Ring.” 2015. jpg.

Caption: Tucked away, inconspicuously in the corner of a collection box under a thin cloth laid a piece of paper with a ring fastened onto the rectangular sheet. For the Historic Huguenot Street historians however, it is an item that could possibly be one of the oldest and most interesting to their collection if legend can be proven as fact.

Rooney, Megan. “Huguenot Refugee Ring Reverse.” 2015. jpg.

Physical Description: The ring is fastened to a piece of somewhat thick paper, thicker than typical writing paper of today. It is fastened to the middle of the paper by four pieces of string, punctured through the paper and tied together on the backside. The ring has left a grey circle on the paper where perhaps the material of the ring has rubbed off onto the paper like tarnish from years of being attached. Information has been written onto the paper on which the ring is secured that suggests a great history for such an unassuming object. “Gold Ring worn by Huguenot Refugee // at time of Revocation of “Edict of Nantes” 1685” is written in ink onto the front of the paper above and below the placement of the ring. The script certainly looks like it was written from a different time where words were written on paper by quill and ink with a more expressive style. The back of the paper possibly reads: “Some one of Lillie Forebares” though the handwriting is somewhat illegible as compared to the other writing on the paper. Additionally, written upside-down and opposite the aforementioned description is a repeat of the front detail, this time stating: “Gold Ring worn by a Huguenot”.

Provenance: The object was donated to Historic Huguenot Street from a Ms. Katherine Wells and Mr. Freeman Lasher in memory of Edith E. Hasbrouck. A ring of such simplicity could have been a wedding band worn by one of the Huguenots who sought refuge in this area of New York or possibly in one of the European countries the Huguenots fled to such as Ireland, England, the Netherlands or Germany. The secondary object, the piece of paper the ring is attached to, comments on “some one of the Lillie forebears” which is a potential link to the rings ownership.

Narrative: Little can be determined about the ring’s history by just simply observing the ring itself. It is a humble piece of jewelry that would call little attention whether on a finger or off for it is thin and without markings, as plain as a ring can get. On the sheet of paper it is fastened to, it is referred to as a gold ring though that is an assumption thus far. It bares no markings or decorative details that would signify a maker, time period, or owner. The ring is simply a circle of metal. The claim on the piece of paper that a Huguenot refugee wore this ring during the Edict of Nantes is of both huge significance as well as speculation. It is simply a claim after all; hearsay, a myth. We cannot directly ask the object questions or will it to provide us with all the answers.

Rooney, Megan. “New Paltz Placard.” 2015. jpg.

The object combines fascination and frustration—it could potentially be an object of great importance for it could be a material link to the very event that caused the great emigration of Huguenots to various places around the world, in this particular case, our home of New Paltz. However, it could unfortunately be of no consequence at all—a story of make believe thought up by perhaps a history fanatic with a grand imagination or a distant relative related to someone in the New Paltz genealogy that could have sworn that’s how the story went about the ring in the retelling of a tale.

This object has been a source of enchantment. Regardless if its history is true or false, when one thinks about this ring, it is likely that nostalgia will take over as it has the potential to be a miniature piece of a dramatic history that is so dear to the town’s past.

The Edict of Nantes was a French law passed by King Louis IV allowing French Protestants a degree of religious freedom to publically worship their religion with full civil rights. The Protestants of France are referred to as the Huguenots and it was they who found freedom of persecution following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes decades later by King Louis XIV in the New World. The overturning of the edict in 1685 spurred the emigration of the Huguenots to what would become New Paltz. If the description on the paper were indeed true, that would mean this ring was worn by a Huguenot seeking refuge in response to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and furthermore, this person could belong to that of a Lillie ancestry but there is still much to explore. In contrast, if this is false, then who crafted this story and why? Who are the Lillie’s, if anyone at all? Who may have worn this ring and from where did it come?

In initial searching, little has been found about a Lillie family connected with the Ulster County settlement by the Huguenots. However, some information was found about the Lillie Family of Lisburn in Northern Ireland. These Huguenots are descendants of de Lilles from the town of Lilles in France who left the country for Ireland in the 1570s following the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve in 1572. Is it possible that one of the Huguenots who came to the Hudson Valley is connected to this family line and wore this ring? If no Lillie family is connected to New Paltz or elsewhere in New York then it would be important to determine any connection the donors may have had with this ring and why they chose to donate it in memory of Edith E. Hasbrouck.

Trainor, Ashley. “Donor Card.” 2015. jpg.

The ring is so painfully simple that upon inspection, nothing can be derived from the materiality of it. However, the object does show us that we can emotionally connect to even the most basic of items. If this was in fact a wedding band from the 1600s, then the society has in its hands an item that bound two people through the placement of this item on their finger. Those people’s histories are a part of the ring as well in addition to anyone after them that wore this ring and carried it with them through their life. Now the ring has a new layer added onto it as it resides at Huguenot Street, its new home. We perpetuate the utter fascination with this object with the legends we imbue in it since its origins ultimately remain a mystery.

Bibliography

Best, E. Joyce. “The Huguenots Come to Lisburn.” Lisburn. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.

Cavendish, Richard. “The Edict of Nantes.” The Edict of Nantes. History Today, 4 Apr. 1998. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.

Trainor, Ashley. “Donor Card.” 9 April 2015. Digital Image

For this week’s blog post I decided to look at a text that lives on Dr. Pat Sullivan’s bookshelf. I thought it was be intriguing to observe one of the books she owns and keeps in her office. Dr. Sullivan is a scholar of rhetoric and focuses on gender, race and class in political rhetoric. The book she suggested to analyze is Cicero on Oratory and Orators, translated and edited by J.S. Watson and was a new edition of Cicero’s De Oratore and Brutus which was written way back when in 55 B.C.! The inside flap of the paper cover introduces the text as “a significant publishing event”. Ralph A. Micken, was a professor of Speech and Chairman of the Department of the Southern Illinois University,  wrote the introduction for this particular text. The back flap of the cover informed me that Micken lectured on Cicero for over 30 years and completed extensive research at the British Museum and British Universities, reviewing manuscripts of Cicero’s De Oratore. I learned that J.S. Watson prepared and published this edition of the text in 1878 and it was Micken who selected this edition for reprinting as it is considered one of the best translated versions with its textual and historical notes made by Watson. The preface to the text is by J.S. Watson from his original publication where he credits the work of George Barnes, a Barrister of the Inner Temple, whose translation of De Oratore in 1762 provided the ground for Watson’s further translation. 

This version of the text was published in 1970 and is a part of a series called “Landmarks in Rhetoric and Public Address”. It is a hardcover book that could have been purchased for $8.50, according to the price printed on the inside flap of the jacket. It was printed using the process of “offset lithography” in the United States of America. Offset lithography is a process that uses printing plates to transfer images and text to paper and was created in 1796. It requires a chemical treatment on the plate to allow for the transferring of the specifically inked areas that utilizes the repulsion of oil and water.. I looked into the process online and it was rather confusing to me even though it was one of the most common ways to print materials. Looking into this facet of the book as object research was eye-opening–I had no idea how many different processes have been invented and innovated for printing materials and that a book printed in 1970 would use a process first created nearly 200 years earlier!

Most hardcover books that I own or have come across have a paper cover that has been printed with a glossy finish. The jacket of this text however looks a lot like manila paper to me! The inside flap reveals a color that would have been much closer to its original color which appears to be buff in color though the outside back, front and spine have certainly yellowed with age. It has this interesting design to it with that looks like fine blue marks that may have been a choice by the designer of the paper product. The book itself is a bright red color and the spine has the editors last name, Watson, the title of the text, Mickens name as well as Southern Illinois University Press all printed in gold. The book is about eight by five inches and contains over 400 pages of text. Within the pages of the text are notations written by Dr. Sullivan. She marked passages with a blue pen, preferring to underline sections of interest and writing key words from the text that struck her such as the phrase, “memory exercised through practice” in her familiar handwriting.

I enjoyed using the little clues within the text to determine its origin story even though I really only scratched the surface with this post! It was interesting to me to select one text off Dr. Sullivan’s bookshelf because it allowed me to take a small peak inside her academic journey, having acquired the text in 198o while she was at graduate school for a course on classical rhetoric that Pat attests to being “really intense”! A text such as Cicero’s shows that it continues to transcend time thanks to the effort of translators and the influx of interest and continued relevance in consuming such works of one of the great orators.

I’m switching gears for this weeks blog post as I was hesitant to get super meta about the habitus of the ring I’ve been writing about that always lives on my hand and how I am its habitus or something along those lines. It could be an interesting way to approach the topic but I think it’s best for all of us to examine something a bit more tangible.

The Towle Sterling Silver Full-Service Set. You can see that it’s a bit worse for wear as it’s been in the family for over 60 years!

Instead I’m choosing to focus on a sterling silverware set that is often tucked away in my family home’s red dining room. This is a “full service” set that contains utensils (forks, knives, and spoons) for 12 people as well as serving utensils, such as large spoons for dishes, a meat fork and knife, and a small ladle for sauces and gravies, among other things that somehow get used though I never really know what they’re used for until they’re in use! I didn’t realize how special this silverware set was until I started doing some research on the company, Towle Sterling and saw the prices for a set such as this one. Towle Silversmith was founded in 1690 in Massachusetts and has since expanded to become “the proud guardians of America’s silver heritage”, according to their About Us section online.

On the website you can browse sets by their style of the hand for the silverware and I selected the one that looks the most similar to the style we own and found out that a 12 piece, full service set costs over $11,000! I was absolutely floored. Now, I have no idea how much our set would be worth now and I had a tough time figuring out the price of sterling silverware like this from 1952. That was the year my grandmother (who gave me the claddagh ring on my 13th birthday), got married to my late grandfather, William Rooney. Colleen Ryan, or Nan as my sisters and I call her, was gifted the set of sterling silver as a very generous wedding gift, possibly from my great aunt Greta who my dad tells me was very wealthy at the time. Nan passed this down to my mother and father when they got married in 1984 and it’s been a part of my immediate family since.

The China Cabinet, truly filled to the brim!

I’m not sure if the sterling silver set is the reason why we somehow got the role of Christmas dinner hosts over the years but it certainly helps that we have all that fancy utensils! The brown wooden box that houses all the individual pieces only comes out of hiding three times a year. It travels with us to my uncle Paul’s house for Thanksgiving dinner and is used in our own home for Christmas and Easter. These holidays apparently call for the good stuff, so out comes the sterling silver along with the china and the crystal glassware. Objects such as these are a part of a tradition–the occasions that they resurface for seem to require their usage or else would it really be Christmas dinner without the sterling silver?

I realize I’ve rambled on a bit about the items and not about their place in a habitus. But that’s what struck me about this sterling silver set. That I almost always forget about the chest that contains the shiny objects until they are called upon when a year has gone by and its time for them to fulfill their dutiful service. It’s a bit sad really–the chest gets filled with the silverware once its been cleaned and polished after use and is closed up and put under our large china cabinet that rests in our dining room. The china cabinet itself is an antique that houses both expensive, delicate items as well as little knickknacks and unique objects my sisters and I have made over the years. The chest doesn’t even have a place within the cherished china cabinet as it doesn’t fit amongst all the other objects that have already been placed within.

Family and friends at Christmas Dinner, 2015

Under that cabinet that is nearly filled to the brim is the silverware chest that remains their inconspicuous, nearly hidden from sight. I find its existence is our dining room quite humble when I think about it now. Something worth so much and cherished so much lives such a modest life 362 days of the year. It’s nice though, that it’s used for such joyous occasions, when everyone is around the table, eating and drinking and engaging in mirth and merriment. But that too comes to an end and we resume our everyday lives and the wooden chest filled with the sterling silverware is placed gently on the floor and slid under the cabinet, where it quietly rests, destined for a fine layer of dusts until it is to be retrieved again and revealed in all its glory.

The vibrant Latin Quarter of Galway City

For this week’s blog post, I decided to use my object, the claddagh ring, as a means of transportation. I wanted to explore the origins of the ring style and iconography and how the history of the ring has transcended time. As with much of Irish lore, the stories associated with the origins of such antiquities is a bit fuzzy. Determining a concrete history of the claddagh is a bit difficult but I’m beginning to piece together how the ring and its meaning came to be.

Here’s a shot of Galway Bay from late September–the river was quite low at this time in the day!

Firstly, the word “claddagh” means, “shore”, specifically a flat stony shore in Gaelic or Irish. Claddagh is a small fishing town of Galway Bay, outside the city of Galway in the west of Ireland. Galway lies on the River Corrib and cannels throughout the city allow for the passage of water from the harbor. I visited Galway when I was abroad in Ireland and walked from the city center to the outskirts of the city to the shore of the harbor. The city itself is vibrant and bustling and you can feel the history of the city in the air. I loved how the river was interwoven with the city itself—you could tell that the bay had a strong relationship with the culture of the city. I’m kicking myself a bit for not exploring the history of my claddagh ring while I was there, I even remember seeing a plaque for fishing town of Claddagh and the iconography of the claddagh ring everywhere throughout the city. I guess I was too caught up in the overall experience to even think about the small object on my own hand and how wearing that ring connected me to the foreign city.

Here’s one of the many shops in Galway that sold rings–particularly claddagh engagement rings as seen by the signage painted directly onto the wall of the shop!

One origin story that I read about the claddagh symbol and ring revolves around the Joyce family, a significant tribe of Galway, and their history dating back over 300 years. The story is slightly complicated but it goes something like this: Margaret Joyce married Domingo de Rona, a wealthy Spaniard. His fortune was left to Margaret when he passed and with his wealth she had bridges built in Connacht, the province of Ireland in which Galway is located. Legend has it that Margaret, who later married the Mayor of Galway in 1596, was rewarded for her charitable work by an eagle that dropped a gold claddagh ring into her lap (hmmmmm, curious). Another story that involves the Joyce family comes later in history—Richard Joyce of the Joyce Family, was captured by Algerians en route to the West Indies. In captivity, a Moorish goldsmith taught him the art of metalwork. Richard was eventually released from slavery thanks to King William III of England in 1689. Joyce decided to return to his home of Galway and became a goldsmith (in some stories, a silversmith) himself! The claddagh motif is now attributed to him, as it was a design he created in captivity. His initials appear on one of the earliest surviving claddagh rings from around 1700!

Richard Joyce’s Claddagh Ring circa 1700 http://weldons.ie/rare-claddagh-ring-by-richard-joyce/

In modern time, this particular ring has been acquired by JW Weldon, a fourth generation family jeweler located in Dublin—they specialize in modern and antique diamond rings in other antique jewelry as well as rare 17^th and 18^th century Irish silver pieces. It’s kind of crazy to think that this ring has survived all this time! What is this Richard Joyce had never been captured and taught the goldsmith craft?? Would the claddagh ring design exist? I also found out that the claddagh ring’s popularity rose so much so that it became the only Irish ring worn by Queen Victoria, Queen Alexandra and King Edward VII! The Royal Patent for the claddagh ring was later issued to Dillon of Galway where it is still made and supplied today at Thomas Dillon’s, established in 1750, located in the city of Galway. I actually went to this shop! There’s a sign on the outside of this bright red building that reads: “T. Dillon and Son / Home of the Original Claddagh Ring / The Hands are for Friendship, The Heart is for Love, And Loyalty is shown with the Crown up above”. Now I’m not sure if he gets the title of “Home of the Original Claddagh Ring” because he patented it and started the reproduction of the ring—it appears the way on the stores website where they do indeed give credit to Richard Joyce as the creator of the claddagh motif. It’s hard to be sure if this is precisely how the claddagh ring came to be but I rather enjoy the story and all its fascinating pieces! It was interesting to learn how it involved people interacting with other cultures but always returned back to Galway. It gives me a curious foundation for the rings iconography and the various peoples involved in its peculiar history.

Here is the citation to the website for Thomas Dillons. It gave me the most thorough and legitimate story about the history of the claddagh ring after looking through other abbreviated stories online.

“History of the Ring.” Thomas Dillons Claddagh Gold. 1 Jan. 2010. Web. 7 Feb. 2015. <http://www.claddaghring.ie/content/7-history-claddagh-ring&gt;.

Tipperary is a bit southeast of Limerick, which is where I studied last semester. http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/europe/ie.htm

My claddagh ring is an object I realize to be quite common—it’s a piece of jewelry that has been manufactured many times to be sold in “traditional Irish shops” across the states and in Ireland. I decided to look into the shop I knew my grandmother purchased the ring from. The shop is called “Tipperary” named after the town and county in Ireland located in Munster province and was founded in 1979. Tipperary is known as the “Celtic Jeweler of Irish imports” and according to their about section on weddingwire.com, “stock the widest and most extensive selection of Irish hallmarked gold, silver and fashion jewelry anywhere including Ireland itself. Really no other Irish shop even comes close”! I’ve been in this shop and I mean, yeah sure it had a lot of Irish-y things but that seems like quite a lofty claim for a shop located in the middle of nowhere, Brunswick New York to be making in my opinion.

So I decided to pop on over to their website and have a look around to see if I could find anything about manufacturers and companies they partner with for their imports. I knew going into it I probably would not be able to find my exact ring because it was purchased nearly ten years ago but I set out to look at the rings that would perhaps most closely match the style of the one I own. I began looking under “Rings” and selecting “Sterling Silver Claddagh” but that proved to be an overwhelming search on the site since there’s just so many option that the store sells. Instead I looked by brand to narrow down my search and came across the company “Facet Jewellers” which is a “luxury diamond jewellery store” that was founded in 1978, located in Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin.

This is what’s called the Sterling Silver Maids Claddagh ring by Facet Jewellers, Co. Dublin http://www.shoptipperary.com/sterling-silver-maids-claddagh-ring

This is Facet Jewellers 14k Yellow Gold Diamond and Emerald Claddagh Ring priced at $1,987.50 (an internet special for the store! Get it while you can!) http://www.shoptipperary.com/14k-yellow-gold-diamond-and-emerald-claddagh-ring

Now, I can’t be sure as of right now that this is the same brand that my claddagh ring came from but in comparing the style of my ring to one I found on the site, they are similarities and differences but it seemed plausible! I suppose the most helpful thing I could do would be to go to the shop itself and have it looked at so maybe I will do that at some point this semester! The ring I found online is a bit more ornate than the one I possess but it is still quite simple in its design compared to others sold on the site. This one is priced at $69.99, which is modest in comparison to rings I saw for hundreds of dollars, some even over $2,000. Depending on the material used to make the ring, the price obviously skyrockets. Some of the rings sold on the site are white gold or yellow gold; some have gemstones embedded into the heart or along the band.

It’s interesting looking at all the different styles because it makes me appreciate the one I have even more. I love how simple my ring is—its something I feel comfortable wearing every day. It’s an unassuming piece of jewelry that still holds a story and carries significance to me. I definitely want to go to the shop and have someone take a look at it but in the meantime I think I should give my grandmother a call and ask her why she chose this as a present for my thirteenth birthday. There’s still lots more to discover about this humble ring!

This ring’s home is around the index finger of my right hand, though for the longest time it had been worn around that hand’s middle finger. It is a size 7 and when taken off, the shape of the ring is circular, despite its slightly irregular shape, likely due to wear. I was given this ring nine years ago, nearly to the day, (my birthday was on Friday!) when I turned 13. My grandmother gave me this ring as it represents our Irish heritage, it being a traditional claddagh ring. 

The ring is made of silver and is very simple in design compared to the plethora of claddagh rings I have seen since owning it, now that I am aware of their commonplace in not only Irish culture but American culture as well. As mentioned before, the ring is ever so slightly bent, perhaps from wear over nine years of ownership and my own personal mistreatment of the gift, me being at times an irresponsible owner.

The focal point of the ring is the iconography that makes it specifically a claddagh ring. The band forms two hands that come together from either side to hold a heart that wears a crown. This ring is very modest in its design compared to an array of ornate variations that can be found. The hands that clasp the heart appear as though they stem from a wrist clothed in a shirt—there is a line that appears vertically across the silver band to emulate a shirt cuff accompanied by horizontal lines—almost like faint scratch marks now that have worn down significantly—to look like the folds of the cuff. The hands are positioned such that the thumbs are holding the heart from above while the rest of the fingers are drawn together below the heart with an open space between the thumb and fingers. There are faint markings to mimic the separation of the individual fingers though they appear haphazardly and are not evenly distributed to create all the fingers. These lines too are faint, requiring close inspection. The heart itself is somewhat oblong, favoring a more horizontal shape with rounded edges rather than a strong vertical, pointed heart shape. Between the heart and the crown there is a space but it is not completely open unlike the space between the thumb and the fingers. Rather, it appears as a cavity within the metal. The crown that sits atop the heart has a simple band with the top of the crown marked by seven lines to show the arches. All these pieces come together to make the claddagh, representing friendship, love and loyalty characterized by the hands, heart and crown respectively.

The ring’s diameter is 2 centimeters, the backside of the band is .3 cm and it is 1 cm from the base of the heart to the top of the crown. The outer, backside of the band, the side not on display while worn, is regular in width and without detail. When inspected closely, the outer band is laden with imperfections. Faint scratches, none that actually cut away at the silver but just scratch the surface are detected, likely from constant wear of the ring and coming in contact with other objects that would disturb the metal. The inside of the band has a scratch or marking of some kind on the right side when observing the ring with the front facing forward. On the left side of the inner band, there is a faint marking that appears to be numbers that have significantly worn away likely due to constant wear. The numbers appear to read “325” which leads me to believe they signify a serial number for the make of this style ring. There are other minor markings, perhaps scratches or imperfections in the making of the ring that are found on the inner band, close to the printed number.

I’d like to determine what type of material the ring is made out of since it has been susceptible to scratches and markings over time and has tarnished little over nine years. I know that it is a very common style ring as I’ve seen them all over gift shops and specialty stores both in the states and in Ireland. Despite it being so common, I’m excited to look into the history of the claddagh symbol and how it grew so feverishly in popularity over time. Having traveled to Ireland and visited the city where the design originated, I’m eager to learn about the possible customs and traditions associated with the ring and how its usage has changed over time.