Category:O'Brien arms

Basic arms & blazon[edit]

The O'Brien (Ó Briain) dynasty, kings of Munster, Ireland, was founded in the 10th century by w:Brian Boru who by conquest became High King of Ireland. Brian's descendants thus carried the name Ó Briain, continuing to rule the Kingdom of Munster until the 12th century when their territory had shrunk to the Principality of Thomond. The last Ó Briain to reign in Thomond was Murrough Ó Briain (d.1551) who surrendered his sovereignty to the new Kingdom of Ireland under the rule of King Henry VIII of England, being created instead (1543) w:Earl of Thomond and Baron Inchiquin and maintaining a role in governance. To show this resignation of the Gaelic Order and showing loyalty to the new king and government, the old heraldic arms (A dexter forearm grasping a sword in pale proper) were discarded and King Henry VIII granted to Murrough his own personal arms of Plantagenet, differenced by tincture of the lions (party per pale or and argent) and by the absence of armed and langued azure (O'Brien, Donough, History of the O'Briens from Brian Boroimhe, AD. 1000 to AD. 1945, London, 1949, pp.50-54 & 198)

Quarterings: The quarters are (2nd): Argent, three piles in point issuing from the chief gules and (3rd): Or, a pheon point down azure, both also adopted in 1543. Ivar O’Brien (1992) believes the three piles to be an earlier symbol of O’Brien of Arra in County Tipparary (a branch of the O’Brien Clan and described as being "a law unto themselves"). However strong circumstantial evidence suggests that they were a difference of the arms of the entirely unrelated Sir w:Francis Bryan (1490-1550) a courtier of King Henry VIII and Lord Justice of Ireland during the reign of his son King Edward VI, adopted to show loyalty to the English crown. Sir Francis Bryan was of the Anglo-Norman de Bryan family, from Devonshire in England and Pembrokeshire in Wales, founded by Guy de Bryan. The pheon was adopted to show loyalty to Sir w:Henry Sidney, w:Lord Deputy of Ireland, (1565–71 & 1575–78) whose family arms were identical: Or, a pheon point down azure. (Ivar O’Brien, The O’Brien Arms: a Speculation of their Origin, The Royal O’Briens: a Tribute, 1992, p.61). "From an English point of view this was a great honor, but to the Ui Briain Clan, the Irish, and the Gaelic Order, it was surrender and defeat" (Garry Bryant / Garaidh Ó Briain, O'Brien Clan Heraldry, History of O’Brien Clan Heraldry, (Irish Armiger, 1992) [1])