Editing Claddagh ring (section)

==Origins==
[[Galway]] has produced Claddagh rings continuously since at least 1700,<ref name="Mulveen"/> but the name "Claddagh ring" was not used before the 1830s.<ref name="Delamer"/><ref name="places.galwaylibrary.ie">[http://places.galwaylibrary.ie/history/chapter265.html A freely available but incomplete copy of Delamer's article, The Claddagh Ring (1996), without pictures].</ref><ref>Pearsall, Judy [ed.]. (2004) "Claddagh Ring" in ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary'', Oxford University Press.</ref> Although there are various myths and legends around the origin of the Claddagh ring, it is almost certain that it originated in or close to the small fishing village of [[Claddagh]] in Galway.<ref name="places.galwaylibrary.ie"/>

As an example of a maker, [[Bartholomew Fallon]] was a 17th-century Irish [[goldsmith]], based in Galway, who made Claddagh rings until circa 1700. His name first appears in the will of one Dominick Martin, also a jeweller, dated 26 January 1676, in which Martin willed Fallon some of his tools. Fallon continued working as a goldsmith until 1700. His are among the oldest surviving examples of the Claddagh ring, in many cases bearing his signature.<ref>Adrian James Martyn. (2001) ''[[The Tribes of Galway]]'', p.&nbsp;60.</ref>

There are many [[legend]]s about the origins of the ring, particularly concerning [[Richard Joyce (goldsmith)|Richard Joyce]], a [[silversmith]] from Galway ''circa'' 1700, who is said to have invented the Claddagh design.<ref name="Quinn">George Quinn. (1970) [http://places.galwaylibrary.ie/history/chapter267.html The Claddagh Ring], ''The Mantle'', 13:9–13.</ref><ref name="Mulveen"/> Legend has it that Joyce was captured and enslaved by [[Corsairs of Algiers|Algerian Corsairs]] around 1675 while on a passage to the West Indies; he was sold into slavery to a [[Moors|Moorish]] goldsmith who taught him the craft.<ref name="Stephen Walker"/> [[William III of England|King William III]] sent an ambassador to Algeria to demand the release of any and all British subjects who were enslaved in that country, which at the time would have included Richard Joyce. After fourteen years, Joyce was released and returned to Galway and brought along with him the ring he had fashioned while in captivity: what we've come to know as the Claddagh. He gave the ring to his sweetheart, married, and became a goldsmith with "considerable success".<ref>James Hardiman (1820), ''The History of the Town and County of the Town of Galway'', {{cite web |url=http://claddagh.com/library/joyes.htm |title=Extracts from the History of the Town and County of the Town of Galway |access-date=2013-09-26 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131003022908/http://claddagh.com/library/joyes.htm |archive-date=3 October 2013 }}</ref> His initials are in one of the earliest surviving Claddagh rings,<ref name="Delamer"/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://weldons.ie/rare-claddagh-ring-by-richard-joyce/|title=Richard Joyce Claddagh Ring|date=11 May 2011 |publisher=JW Weldon of Dublin}}</ref> but there are three other rings also made around that time bearing the mark of goldsmith Thomas Meade.<ref name="Delamer"/>

The Victorian [[antiquarian]] Sir William Jones described the Claddagh, and gives [[Chambers Book of Days|Chambers' ''Book of Days'']]<ref>Robert Chambers. (1863) ''Book of Days: A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities''.</ref> as the source, in his book ''Finger-Ring Lore''. Jones says:<ref name="Jones"/> {{blockquote|The clasped hands [style ring]... are... still the fashion, and in constant use in [the]... community [of] Claddugh {{sic}} at [County] Galway.... [They] rarely [intermarry] with others than their own people.}}

An account written in 1906 by William Dillon, a Galway jeweller, claimed that the "Claddagh" ring was worn in the [[Aran Isles]], [[Connemara]] and beyond.<ref name="William Dillon">William Dillon. (1906) ''Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society'', 5.</ref> Knowledge of the ring and its customs spread within Ireland and Britain during the Victorian period, and this is when its name became established.<ref name="Delamer"/> Galway jewellers began to market it beyond the local area in the 19th century.<ref name="Delamer"/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.claddaghring.ie/content/8-historical-letters|title=Letters to Dillon's of Galway|publisher=Thomas Dillon's Claddagh Gold Museum}}</ref> Further recognition came in the 20th century.<ref name=McCrum>{{cite journal
|author= McCrum, Elizabeth
|title= Irish Victorian Jewellery
|jstor=20491715
|year=1985
|journal=Irish Arts Review
|volume=2
|issue=1
|pages=18–21}}</ref>