Claddagh ring

Cut or cast in bezels, they were used as engagement and wedding rings in medieval and Renaissance Europe to signify "plighted troth".

[8] As an example of a maker, Bartholomew Fallon was a 17th-century Irish goldsmith, based in Galway, who made Claddagh rings until circa 1700.

[10] There are many legends about the origins of the ring, particularly concerning Richard Joyce, a silversmith from Galway circa 1700, who is said to have invented the Claddagh design.

[11][3] Legend has it that Joyce was captured and enslaved by Algerian Corsairs around 1675 while on a passage to the West Indies; he was sold into slavery to a Moorish goldsmith who taught him the craft.

[7] 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.

Jones says:[2] 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.

"[20] In Ireland, the United States, Canada, and other parts of the Irish diaspora, the Claddagh is sometimes handed down mother-to-eldest daughter or grandmother-to-granddaughter.

Public figures including John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton have worn the Claddagh ring.

Peter O'Toole and Daniel Day-Lewis were frequently seen wearing the Claddagh ring, as well as Mia Farrow and Gabriel Byrne.