Time Machine to…The Claddagh Mystery

Being of 1/4 Irish descent (more or less), I’ve tried from time-to-time to touch base with some of the culture of the Emerald Isle. Perhaps the most visible dailymanifestation is the fact that I wear a Claddagh ring.

The legend of how the Claddagh Ring came to be is the stuff of romantic legend. The most accepted tale is how, in the 1600s, a Galway man named Richard Joyce was traveling in the West Indies when his ship was captured and he was sold into slavery to an Algerian goldsmith. When William III later became king of Great Britain, he compelled the Moors to release their slaves (in 1689 — give or take). By this time, Richard had become skilled as a goldsmith, and the story goes that his former master offered him his daughter and half his fortune to stay. Joyce instead traveled back to Ireland and reunited with his love, who had waited for him. Joyce made a ring for her to symbolize their love, friendship, and loyalty (the story varies as to whether the ring was forged during his indenture or if he just planned the design then and forged the ring upon his return). Being that this is a romantic tale, he and his lady married (of course) and lived happily ever after.

There are many reasons why I’d like to see how this story actually played out. Did Richard Joyce actually make the first Claddagh Ring? Did the goldsmith really offer Joyce so much to stay? Mostly though, if more-or-less true, I’d love to know the name of this faithful Irish Penelope who waited for her wayward Odysseus no less patiently than the woman in the even older legend. In none of the research I’ve done have I been able to divine her name. I’m curious.

(I have a sneaking suspicion that this is more of an Irish adaptation of The Odyssey, but there is enough in the record to make me think some of it might be true…but what can I say, I’m a romantic.)