The Ring With Two Hands
The Claddagh ring — two hands clasping a crowned heart, for love, loyalty and friendship — is one of the most widely recognized pieces of Irish design anywhere in the world, reproduced on everything from wedding bands to keychains far from Ireland's shores. Its origin traces to one specific Galway workshop, still trading today.
Thomas Dillon's has traded from Quay Street since 1750 and is, by its own account, the workshop that first cast the Claddagh ring. A small back-room museum on the premises shows some of the oldest surviving examples of the design, and the family still makes rings, brooches and pendants in sterling silver and 9, 14 and 18 carat gold — the same forms, the same clasped hands, worked continuously on the same street for close to three centuries.
A short walk away on Williamsgate Street, Fallers of Galway has made Claddagh and Celtic rings since Stephen Faller opened the shop in 1879. Its own moment in the wider world's attention came in 1963, when the family presented Claddagh rings to John and Jacqueline Kennedy during their visit to Ireland — a sitting American president and First Lady wearing a design that had, until then, been largely a regional Irish tradition.
Between them, the two shops carry the ring's whole arc: one workshop that claims the original cast, a few streets from the shop that helped send the design around the world via the most famous hands available at the time. Buying a Claddagh ring in Galway today means buying from the same short stretch of streets where the tradition both began and went global.
Article references
The houses in this story
- Thomas Dillon's Claddagh Gold Quay Street, Latin Quarter
Trading from Quay Street since 1750, this is the workshop that first cast the Claddagh ring, and a small back-room museum shows some of the oldest surviving examples. The family still makes rings, brooches and pendants in sterling silver and 9, 14 and 18 carat gold. store page → · open in the atlas → - Fallers of Galway Williamsgate Street
Stephen Faller opened his Galway jewellers in 1879, and the shop on Williamsgate Street has made Claddagh and Celtic rings ever since. In 1963 the family presented Claddagh rings to John and Jacqueline Kennedy during their visit to Ireland. store page → · open in the atlas →