Omnibus – Branding the old-fashioned way

ITâ€â„¢S going to be a historical year. What with the Tuam 400 at local level, the centenary of the 1913 lockout at national, and doubtless reminders of the Ulster Volunteers as well, there will be plenty of grist to the history nerdsâ€â„¢ mill. And it looks likely even to be a historic year also, to judge from the headlines â€â€ the Deal, the Pope ... The weekend of the launch of the Tuam 400 was, by coincidence, another link in the townâ€â„¢s long chain of ecclesiastical history. Onâ€Ë†Friday and Saturday February 1 and 2 the Cathedral of the Assumption was the venue for the funeral rites of an archbishop. We have had many archbishops since the see was elevated in rank at the Synod of Kells in 1152. How many of them were waked, massed and buried in their own bailiwick I do not know, but suffice to say our urban timeline is punctuated by such events. On a personal note, I can remember four archbis[private]hops â€â€ Dr Joseph Walsh, for whom I served Mass many a morning in what we then called the Palace; his nickname was Tiny, for some reason, and he was very pleasant to his mass servers, who usually did duty during their last year of primary and possibly first year of secondary school. Then there was Dr Joseph Cunnane, a kindly man not given easily to small talk, and of course there is the present incumbent, Dr Michael Neary, who is probably in a lonelier place than any of his recent predecessors, given the recent and current travails of the Church. Mayo men all, like the late Archbishop Joe (Cassidy), who will always hold a special place in my affections. He had what pyschologists call a warm affect â€â€ he connected very easily with people, and he was a wonderful communicator. Like the Galway Dominican Fr Tom Burke, he deserved the title Praedicatorum Princeps â€â€ a prince of preachers. When he was consecrated Bishop of Clonfert I was in Loughrea Cathedral, and wrote a slightly irreverent piece in which I said that the stageâ€â„¢s loss of an actor was the Churchâ€â„¢s gain. He took it in the spirit in which it was intended, and so we had already got off to a good start when he was translated to Tuam ... But all that was a digression â€â€ it was another ecclesiastical unit that I had in mind when I started this piece, and I have not come to it yet. Tuam, like Armagh, has two cathedrals â€â€ of the Assumption, and of St Mary. The Church of Ireland cathedral is for the United Diocese of Tuam, Killala and Achonry, and I did not know until recently that it lacked a basic accessory for any such body â€â€ a coat of arms. As you know, coats of arms are the medieval precursor of what we now call logos, or brands, if you like. Graphic images, they identify their owners without words, or at least with a minimum of words. They were first used to identify knights when their faces were obscured by helmets in battle, or in the tournament. As time went by they became very elaborate, and when marriage joined two noble houses, the arms of each were often combined in a pictorial representation of the alliance. Because armorial bearings were an indication of status, their use was very strictly regulated by officials at Court. Even in this republic we have a Chief Heraldâ€â„¢s Office, which continues a tradition begun in 1552. It is now a branch of the National Library, and if you want a grant of arms, it is to this office you must apply. The arms you see here are those of the aforementioned United Diocese, and they are described as follows in the official register: â€Å“Azure beneath three Gothic arches as many figures Or their faces, hands and feet proper In the middle the Blessed Virgin holding upon her left arm the Child their heads circled in glory, on her dexter side a bishop pontifically vested his dexter hand raised in benediction the sinister holding a crozier bendwise and on her sinister an angel the head circled of the Second the dexter arm elevated and beneath the sinister a lamb of the Third impaled with Gules a pastoral staff Or surmounted of an open book proper.â€Â Now all that may seem the merest gobblegook, but an expert in heraldry would read it and know exactly what it was describing. To pick a few of the terms used above, Azure, Or and Gules mean blue, gold and red. Dexter and sinister mean right and left; proper means in their natural colour. Heraldry is a fascinating subject â€â€ maybe weâ€â„¢ll see some more local coats of arms next week. â€â€ David Burke[/private]