posted on 2017-06-22, 15:07authored byGordon Ó Riain
The three quatrains edited below form part of a controversy which arose in
the late seventeenth century, as to which family could legitimately lay claim
to the heraldic symbol of the Red Hand.1 The controversy is relatively well
known, as four poems belonging to it appeared in Reliquiae Celticae in
1894, and the topic has not infrequently been referred to in print since
O’Curry’s day.2