To Learn -
Is Not Necessarily To Be Joyful!
Here is what I learned:
Soon after I published the preceding "Coats of Arms" page in April '99, Jon Factor mentioned in an e-mail, "The name McMenamin and its myriad of variant spellings is in fact a synonym of Merriman. As there are no coats of arms listed under McMenamin or variants...the arms provided come from Merriman."
That bothered me because of how MacLysaght flatly stated in The Surnames of Ireland, that "The equation with MacMenamin is improbable," and that, "Marmion...A Norman name...from 1302...(is) a synonym for Merriman." He argued still further in More Irish Families against Merriman being a synonym for McMenamin and instead for it being a synonym for Marmion.
I put a lot of credence in MacLysaght's opinion. Dr. Edward MacLysaght, who died in 1986, has long been considered a leading authority on Irish names and Irish family histories. He served as Chief Herald and Genealogical Officer of the Irish Office of Arms, as Keeper of Manuscripts at the National Library of Ireland and as Chairman of the Manuscripts Commission.
Not long after Jon Factor's e-mail, Eddie Geoghegan (see my "Neat Links" page) responded to the request on my "Coats of Arms" page for information on how they might have originated. He said, "Both coats of arms belong to people by the name of Merriman." He also referred to MacLysaght's position that the association between the names Merriman and McMenamin "is improbable." Strangely, when Eddie found my web site, he had been working on a graphic for the Merriman coat of arms (the one on the left of my page) for a client who was an actual Merriman of English ancestry! Eddie wrote, "My source for the coat of arms information is The General Armory (of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland), Sir Bernard Burke - Ulster King of Arms - Heraldry Today, 1884, reprinted 1996." Barnes and Nobles Books calls Burke's General Armory, "The greatest collection of Coats of Arms." Here is the page Eddie refers to in Burke's:
These findings have been confirmed in considerable detail by John McLaughlin, Historian for the Clan MacLaughlin Society at http://members.aol.com/lochlan/clanmac.htm . Ted McMenomy, whose MacMeanmain Clan Pedigree site is at http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Fountain/9153 , found a Clan Merriman site at http://www2.memlane.com/merriman/ with coats of arms that have the same crest, shield and motto as the "Samuel Merriman" arms above!
Jon Factor's "Historical Research Center" of Dublin isn't the only such organization which sells the Merriman coats of arms as the arms for McMenamin and its variants. In 1988, I ordered a "McMenomey" coat of arms from "Historic Families Ltd.," also of Dublin. They sent me the lozengy Merriman arms , but with the motto, "Terar Dum Prosim," from the Samuel Merriman arms!!
Finally, Eddie G told me that if he ever finds "the elusive McMenamin coat of arms," I'll be the first to know. If he ever does find one, all you visitors to my site will be the next to know!
So What
Can You Do With This Wonderful Information?
Well.................
You can throw out or give away all your McMenamin (or variant) coats of arms!
You can let them hang on your walls (they are pretty) and never explain them to anyone. When asked, just mumble something unintelligible like, "Mumfff, family arms, mumff."
You can disagree with MacLysaght and proudly show them off as the arms of McMenamin or McMenomy or McWhatever, and go on to quote from 6000 years of MacMeanmain history.
Or you can hold forth like a world expert on heraldry and the perils thereof, explain the whole silly mess, and really impress your audience! Then go on to warn your listeners that if they ever want to spend their hard earned money for a coat of arms in their name, they should first check, or have a disinterested, friendly expert check, a good source book on official, legitimately assigned coats of arms, such as Burke's "General Armory."
Or....
How do I say, "Caveat Emptor" in Irish?
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