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Researched and written by Professor Etienne Rynne
The Mace and Seal of Athenry
Shortly after Athenry was founded, a corporation of some sort was instituted, consisting in 1310 of a “Portreeve,
Burgesses and Freemen of the Corporation of the Town and Liberties of Athenry”. The portreeve was elected annually,
as were of about 20 burgesses- the portreeve was a Justice of the Peace, Clerk of the Market and sole Judge in the area.
The portreeve had the use of a mace and the Corporation the use of the seal.
The Athenry mace is unique, not being the usual silver ceremonial mace but a small brass latten clenched fist mounted on a
stout wooden handle and clearly for use as a sort of gavel to keep order at meetings rather than to merely grace a civic
occasion. The seal is also of brass on latten and now mounted on a wooden handle. It is inscribed +SIGILLUM: CONMUNITAS:
DEHENRI around a castle or town gate on which are two bearded heads impaled above its battlements. It has been suggested
that this seal may commemorate the Battle of Athenry in 1316, when among many other Irish chieftains, Felim O’Connor, King
of Connacht and Tadgh O’Kelly of UI Maine, were slain, and that it is their heads which are represented. A14th century date
is generally accepted for both the mace and seal, making the former the oldest known mace from these islands.
When Athenry ceased to be a corporate town in 1840, the mace and seal were handed over to Theophilus Blakeney, properly
the last portreeve, who lived in Abbert, north-east of Athenry and were handed down in the Blakeney family; in 1875 they
were in the keeping of John Blakeney Esq. of Abbert and passed through him to J.H. Blakeney and from him to his brother
Henry William Blakeney, “Gentleman of Abbert, Co. Galway” who “was a notable eccentric who absented himself for years
at a time and took part in the Yukon Gold Rush”. He died in the 1920s and the mace and seal passed to his daughter, Joan
Cecile Blakeney who married H.C.A Blishen, MBE, who later lived in a house called ‘Athenry’ at Arreton on the Isle of Wight.
It was then passed onto his son Anthony O. Blishen, who now lives in Richmond, London and who in July 1999 graciously
presented them for exhibition in the Athenry Heritage Centre.
(c) 2000 Etienne Rynne
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