What the Claddagh Means: Friendship, Loyalty and Love on Canton Square

Look at the green roundel in the Claddagh Pub logo and you'll see a pair of hands holding a crowned heart, with the words "Friendship-Loyalty-Love" around the edge. Plenty of people walk past it on Canton Square without ever asking what it's about. The story behind it is a good one, and it says a lot about how a family pub thinks about the people who come through the door.

Where the Claddagh comes from

The Claddagh is an old fishing village on the edge of Galway city, on Ireland's west coast. The name comes from the Irish word for a shore or stony beach. Over the centuries it became famous for a ring, and the ring became one of the best known pieces of Irish jewelry in the world. Jewelers in Galway have been making Claddagh rings for a very long time, and the design has traveled with Irish families everywhere they've settled, Baltimore included.

Like most good folklore, the origin story changes depending on who's telling it. One version has a sailor taken captive far from home who made the ring for the woman waiting for him. Another credits a Galway goldsmith. There's no need to pick a winner. What nobody argues about is the design itself, and what each piece of it stands for.

Reading the three symbols

• The two hands stand for friendship.
• The crown stands for loyalty.
• The heart stands for love.

Those are the same three words ringed around the Claddagh Pub logo, in the same order: friendship, loyalty, love. The logo adds a shamrock above the Claddagh itself, with gold cuffs on the hands and a red heart under the crown. It's a lot of meaning packed into a small mark, and it's a fair description of what a neighborhood pub is supposed to be.

How people wear the ring

If you've ever wondered what a Claddagh ring says about the person wearing it, the usual rules go like this. Worn on the right hand with the heart pointing out toward the fingertips, it traditionally means the wearer's heart hasn't been spoken for yet. Turn it so the heart points in toward the wrist and it says someone has won that heart. On the left hand with the heart facing in, it's traditionally a wedding ring.

Those are conventions, not laws, and plenty of people simply wear the ring because it was a gift from a grandmother. That counts too. The ring is also given between friends and between family members, which is the oldest meaning of the three.

Why a pub would pick this symbol

Claddagh Pub opened on Canton Square in the spring of 1995. It was a continuation of a family owned Irish pub on Chase Street in downtown Baltimore, which ran through the 1970s and into the 1980s. The family decided that this business was for them and brought the idea to Canton while the neighborhood was going through what they call a rebirth. You can read their own telling of it on the Our Story page, signed "Clarke Family."

A pub is an odd kind of business. Nobody needs to be there, which means the people who come are choosing it. Friendship is what makes you text a neighbor to meet on the Square. Loyalty is what brings a regular back on a slow Tuesday. Love is what gets a family to book the room for a milestone birthday. Read that way, the motto looks less like decoration and more like a job description.

Friendship, loyalty and love, at the bar

Think of the hands as the stranger on the next stool who ends up in your conversation, or the two friends from opposite ends of town who agree to meet halfway. Think of the crown as the people who keep coming back to the same corner year after year. Think of the heart as the long table: the birthday, the first date, the dinner after a christening or a funeral, the night somebody finally says what they came to say.

There's a welcome in the family's sign-off too: Céad Míle Fáilte, Irish for a hundred thousand welcomes. It's a big promise, and it suits a pub with a green neon sign and a motto that puts friendship first.

Come see it for yourself

The next time you're on the Square, look for the Claddagh Pub sign at 2918 O'Donnell Street, then come in and order something off the lunch and dinner menu. An Irish Reuben at $17, corned beef, coleslaw, Swiss and Thousand Island on toasted rye, is a very good way to spend a friendship. If you're gathering people for an occasion worth marking, the private rooms are described on the private party page. The pub's number is (410) 522-4220.