Mayor’s Chain of Office
The Mayor’s Chain of Office was presented to the former Armagh Urban District Council by the Royal Irish Fusiliers in about 1965 and this explains the regimental badges used on the medallions embodied on the chain.
The coronet is the badge of the 89th (Princess Victoria’s own). The Regiment was so named in 1833, when Victoria, not yet queen, presented a stand of colours. The spinx is also an 89th badge commemorating their actions in Egypt in 1801 in the campaign against Napoleon.
The Eagle was the French Army standard captured by 87th Regiment in 1811 at the battle Borrosa. The fuse or grenade has been a badge of the 87th since 1827 when it became a fusilier regiment. These two regiments were joined together as the Royal Irish Fusiliers in the re-organisation of 1881.
The badge at the back with the hunting horn is that of the 75th Armagh Light infantry Militia which regiment became absorbed as a reserve battalion of the Fusiliers after the 1881 re-organisation.
The double armed crosses are Primatial crosses which symbolizes the city’s’ ecclesiastical pre-eminence.
The chain is silver gilt, hallmarked in Birmingham
Coat of Arms
Arms: Azure, on a bend, embattled between in chief, a Primatial Cross and in base, a Harp
Crest: An ancient Irish Crown gold
Motto: In Concilio Consillium – In Council We Plan
The Primatial Cross represents the city’s foundation by St. Patrick in the year A.D. 444 and its position as the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland. It also commemorates the fact that from early times Armagh was the greatest of Ireland’s schools of learning, and emphasises the importance of the Book of Armagh, the earliest datable manuscript of the Christian period, complied in A.D. 807.
The Embattled Bend stresses the civic character of the arms and particularly refers to the request in 1226 by King Henry III to the then Archbishop Netterville for a site in the city to build a castle, a building now demolished but still giving name to one of Armagh’s oldest streets.
The Harp perpetuates the Seal of the Charter granted by King James the First in 1613 and in use from that date to the present, thus reminding all and sundry that the City was a market town of some standing in the year 1467 when King Edward the Fourth granted a fresh patent to Archbishop Bole. This was a confirmation of an earlier one, the date of which is now unknown.
The Irish Crown as a crest signifies that the ancient territory of Emain Macha was the seat of the Kings of Ulster of the period 350 BC to 332 AD and the location of Ulster’s most famous and Ireland’s most ancient order of chivalry, the celebrated Red Branch Knights. The Crown also recognises Armagh a s aplace of regal interments down the centuries, especially of Brian Boru in 1014, and in 1022 of his successor, Mael Sechlainn (Malachy of the Golden Collar), the last absolute monarch of Ireland.
