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Archiver > Scotch-Irish > 1999-02 > 0918341049


From: "Charles.Clark" <>
Subject: Re: McClintock
Date: Sun, 07 Feb 1999 11:44:09 +1300


Marilyn Canfield wrote:
>
> Charles:

> The AMORIAL GENERAL V11 shows McClintock under Rathdonnell dec. 1868
> Ireland and that more or less bears with what you said.
> Marilyn McClintock Canfield

I want to enlarge on something Edward commented on recently, that people
tend to take too seriously the less important bits of culture such as
tartans (often created in cotton from the bonny, bonny, banks of the
Nile! - there's no cotton grown in Scotland, and most of their wool is
imported too, so tartan imported from Scotland is really Scottish in
manufacture only, if that. The only genuinely Scottish tartan is likely
to be the synthetic version created from polyester refined from oil
taken from the North Sea oilfields)

And meanwhile they don't take seriously enough the really important bits
such as the heraldry and coats of arms that really do define the culture
and genealogy, both in Scotland and in Ireland.

I hope your cousin Judy Wills has received the 12 pages of McClintock
genealogy from Burke that I emailed last night. The four McClintock
family genealogies that I sent her (and I don't have the Rathdonnell
one, which is in Burke's Peerage, that would be five in total) all
describe the same coat of arms, though there is some confusion and a
misprint over the date on which it was confirmed by the U.O. (Ulster
Office). It is possible that the coat of arms was in use for some time,
perhaps of the order of centuries, before being registered. The 1958
Burke has the arms being confirmed in 1815, whereas the 1978 Burke has
the date as 1915. The 1978 Burke date of 1915 is probably more accurate,
but it is clear from the genealogies that the arms have been in use for
much longer, probably since the time the Mcclintocks arrived in Ireland
in 1597. I should be interested to see how they compare with McClintock
arms from Argyllshire, in Scotland. If similar or the same, it is safe
to assume they have been in continuous use since migration.

A comment of the use of coats of arms in Ireland compared with England
or Scotland may be in order here: I quote from the Preface to the 1958
edition of Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland (which is not by any means
an official list, but immeasurably superior to some Scottish salesman's
list of tartan-patterned Egyptian cotton cloth)

" As to the description of arms, we have again
reverted to earlier usage and have given arms in every case where they
are in use, unless
some fantastic anomaly would thereby have been caused, irrespective of
whether or not
they were registered. To have adopted a rigid orthodoxy in the case of
Irish arms would
have been contrary to the conditions under which Irish heraldry has
developed. It was
always easier to obtain a confirmation of arms on user in Ireland than
in England,
and many cases will be found in these pages of confirmations of arms
borne for long
periods in Ireland without registration at Ulster Office. All those who
use arms have been
asked by the Editor to give the dates and places of registration if any.
A surprisingly small
number have compiied with this request. The Editor has endeavoured to
repair this
indifference but in many cases has not succeeded and in consequence many
families whose
arms have been recorded must be content to be thought not to have done
so and to be
classed with those equally worthy families whose arms are in use but are
not registered.
It will be observed that place of registration of arms includes not only
Ulster Office, and
the present Genealogical Office at Dublin Castle under the rule of the
Chief Herald of
Ireland, but also the Lyon Offce, and the College of Arms."

The McClintock arms given, then, are as follows:
ARMS (U.O. confirmed 1915) - Per pale gu and az a chevron erm between
three escallops that in the dexter chief or, that in the sinister chief
arg and that in the base per pale of the fourth and last.
Crest - A lion passant arg.
Motto - Virtute et labore

As noted, although these may have been confirmed in 1915, they must have
been in use for centuries before that because they are quoted in
genealogies that diverged centuries earlier.
I do not know what the arms of Lord Rathdonnell look like, but assume
they are probably the same except for the helmet reflecting his superior
rank.
I don't know enough of the language of heraldry to translate more than
some parts of the above description of the arms, so will leave that to
someone else, and hazard an attempt only if noone else does

Given that the four genealogies I have mentioned all clearly come from
the same root, it seems likely that there was only one McClintock that
emigrated to Donegal, in 1597 or earlier, and that if you have roots in
the area, you are probably descended from that root. In which case
although you and your cousin are out of luck if you want to go prancing
round in Egyptian cotton, you would be well justified in saying that you
claim "to be descended from a junior branch of Lord Rathdonnell's
family"
Charlie

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