Irish Families by Edward MacLysaght 1972 3rd Edition, Revised Q1

This book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in Irish history and culture. Written by Edward MacLysaght, a renowned author in the field, this revised edition of "Irish Families" offers insight into the complexities of Irish society. The book is written in Irish and was first published in 1972, making it a rare find for collectors and enthusiasts alike.

The book is categorized under "Books & Magazines" and "Books" and is a must-have for anyone interested in Irish history. The edition is a "Revised Edition" and the language is "Irish". The author, Edward MacLysaght, is a renowned expert in the field and has provided a detailed analysis of Irish society. This book is an excellent resource for anyone looking to gain a deeper understanding of Irish history and culture.

and regarded as authoritative, particularly in

The inaccurate and misleading information thus

imparted with cumulative effect is, however, much more deplorable in the armorial sphere than in the genealogical.

It is an indisputable fact that the publication presenting colour plates of Irish arms which is probably most widely consulted is no less than seventy per cent inaccurate, not only in mere detail, but often in points of primary importance and of an elementary kind. Apart from their many grotesque heraldic blunders the compilers of this work seem to have had a sort of rule of thumb; if they could not find arms for one Irish sept they looked for the name of another somewhat resembling it in sound : thus, for example, they coolly assigned the arms of Boylan to Boland.

This frequently resulted in the arms of some purely English family being inserted in their book of " Irish Arms", the Saxon Huggins being equated with O'Higgins, and so on.

When this arbitrary method failed them they fell back on the arms of

some great Irish sept. To quote one instance of this: Gleeson, Downey, Noonan and MacFadden are all given the arms of O'Brien, though none of these septs had any connexion whatever with the O'Briens or with each other. Consequently many Americans of Irish descent are in good faith using erroneous and often English arms derived from the spurious source in question.

A certain cachet has been given to this because, in the more recent editions of O'Hart's Irish Pedigrees, these same coloured plates have been inserted as if they were an integral part of O'Hart's book. The serious genealogist uses O'Hart with caution, if at all, for he is a far from reliable authority except for the quite modern period. John O'Hart, however, undoubtedly did a vast amount of research, no matter how he used the information he acquired: I know that some of these errors of ascription can actually be traced to him, but it is surely an injustice to him that his well-known name should be used as a cover for the propagation of false and often ludicrous heraldic statements.

It is a common popular error to speak of coats of arms as " crests" * This is another heraldic faux pas of which this extraordinary production is guilty.

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