Is the Cummins coat of arms sold online authentic?

No. The coat of arms sold commercially for Cummins, Commane and Commons families — typically blue and gold sheaves — belongs to the Scottish-Norman House of Comyn, descended from the de Comines family of Flanders. It has no authenticated connection to the Gaelic Ó Comáin family of County Clare, Ireland.

Does the Irish Cummins family have a real coat of arms?

The Gaelic Ó Comáin family — from whom Irish Cummins families descend — did not formally adopt a coat of arms during the period of their chieftainship (8th–9th century), as heraldry did not exist in Europe until the 12th century. Clan Ó Comáin is currently petitioning the Chief Herald of Ireland for a new grant of authentic Gaelic arms.

What is the difference between Cummins and Comyn?

Cummins is the anglicised form of the ancient Irish Gaelic name Ó Comáin, originating in County Clare. Comyn is the anglicised form of the Anglo-Norman name de Comines, originating in Flanders. Though the names sound similar and were confused by English officials from the 16th century onward, they are entirely separate families of different origins.

Coat of Arms — Clan Ó Comáin

Clan Ó Comáin coat of arms — mermaid playing Irish harp with shamrock border

Clan Ó Comáin — coat of arms
The mermaid of Newhall Lake playing an Irish harp

The arms of Clan Ó Comáin

The mermaid of Newhall Lake

The arms of Clan Ó Comáin feature the mystical mermaid of Newhall Lake, playing an Irish harp — symbolising traditional Irish music in the clan's heritage. The mermaid is surrounded by shamrocks representing the protection of the Holy Trinity, the family's saints, and its deep ecclesiastical heritage.

The harp — Ireland's oldest heraldic symbol — reflects the clan's deep roots in the Gaelic musical and cultural tradition of County Clare, a county renowned throughout the world for its traditional music. The shamrock border binds the design to the family's spiritual patrons, Saint Commán of Roscommon and Saint Commán of Kinvara.

Only registered clan members are approved by the Chief to use his crest and coat of arms on personal items, stationery, jewellery and ceremonial objects — including signet rings, bookplates, embroidered goods, engraved silverware, tombstones and vehicle insignia. Membership is open to all who love Irish culture and heritage, wherever in the world they are.

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Setting the record straight

Three garbs — and why they matter

Three coats of arms are associated with the Commane / Comyn / Cummins name. Understanding what each one actually is — and which belongs to the Gaelic Ó Comáin sept of Clare — is essential for any clan member researching their heraldic heritage.

Comen arms — Ulster King of Arms manuscript page 83, c.1650

"Comen" — Ulster King of Arms

Page 83, c. 1650 · National Library of Ireland

A shield labelled "Comen" appears on page 83 of an Ulster King of Arms manuscript dated approximately 1650, placed alongside the arms of the O'Dea family of Clare. This is the document most often cited as evidence of a Commane coat of arms.

On careful examination the arms are essentially identical to the standard Comyn garb arms. The most likely explanation is that a clerk recording Clare-area entries assigned the well-known Norman Comyn arms to the phonetically similar name "Comen" without investigating whether the family was Gaelic or Norman.

NLI catalogue · vtls000540616 ↗

House of Comyn of Buchan

Scotland · Norman origin · de Comines, Flanders

The arms of the House of Comyn — Lords of Badenoch and Earls of Buchan — bear Azure, three garbs Or (blue field, three golden sheaves of wheat). This is the great Scottish-Norman dynasty descended from the de Comines family of Flanders. Their arms have nothing to do with the Gaelic Ó Comáin family of Clare.

The garbs are in fact sheaves of cumin herb — a visual pun (canting arms) on the name Comyn/Cumin. The similarity of name to the Gaelic Comáin is purely phonetic; the families are entirely unrelated.

House of Comyn · WappenWiki ↗

Arms of Micheál Ó Comáin

Herald of Arms · Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland

The personal arms of Micheál Ó Comáin — who served as Herald of Arms at the Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland and bore the Ó Comáin name in its Irish form. His arms feature garbs, consistent with the broader Comyn heraldic tradition.

His family rendered the name variously as Comyns, Cummins and Ó Comáin — illustrating precisely the centuries-long blurring of the Gaelic and Norman traditions. His arms represent the most direct example of the Ó Comáin name bearing arms in the modern Irish heraldic tradition.

More about Micheál Ó Comáin ↓

Micheál Ó Comáin

A notable connection

Micheál Ó Comáin — Herald of Arms

Micheál Ó Comáin served as Herald of Arms at the Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland — the national authority on heraldry — and as a consultant herald who devised arms for other Irish families, including the Genealogical Society of Ireland. His family had rendered the name variously as Comyns, Cummins and Ó Comáin.

Notably, Micheál Ó Comáin himself bore arms featuring garbs — consistent with the Comyn heraldic tradition — reflecting the centuries-long blurring of the Gaelic and Norman traditions that makes the heraldic question of the Ó Comáin name so complex. He also confirmed to researchers that the Office's records prior to 1691 are incomplete, making definitive statements about pre-1691 Gaelic arms particularly difficult.

Our conclusion

Why the Gaelic Ó Comáin family has no historic coat of arms

The reason is historically important and straightforward: coats of arms did not exist during the period when the Ó Comáin family was at the height of its power. The Chiefdom of Tulach Commáin flourished in the 8th and 9th centuries AD. Coats of arms as a formal heraldic system did not begin to develop anywhere in Europe until the 12th century, arriving in Ireland only with the Norman invasion after 1169.

By the time heraldry existed, Cahercommane had been abandoned for two centuries and the chiefdom had faded from the historical record. When the Ulster King of Arms was established in Dublin in 1552, the Ó Comáin family had been without territorial authority for over 300 years — since the dispossession of Conall O'Comain in 1225. The family had, as so many Gaelic families did, lost the institutional memory of its own history.

Even the Kavanaghs — one of the most powerful Gaelic dynasties in Leinster — when seeking a formal grant of arms in 1582 declared that they were "uncertain under what sort and manner their predecessors bore the said arms" and had to request the Ulster King of Arms to assign arms to them entirely afresh. This was the common experience of dispossessed Gaelic families.

Warning

Commercial arms sold under the Commane / Cummins name

Commercial Commane coat of arms sold online — not authentic Gaelic Ó Comáin arms

Numerous commercial heraldry websites sell prints, plaques and jewellery bearing a variation of the Norman Comyn arms — blue and gold sheaves — labelled as the "Commane," "Cummins" or "Comyn" family coat of arms. These have no authentic connection to the Gaelic Ó Comáin sept of Clare and are Norman heraldry incorrectly attributed on the basis of phonetic name similarity alone.

Members of Clan Ó Comáin are asked not to purchase these products. The clan's authentic arms are currently pending a formal application to the Chief Herald of Ireland.

The "Comen" entry on page 83 of the Ulster King of Arms manuscript c.1650 is most likely the Norman Comyn arms recorded under an Irish phonetic spelling — not evidence of an independent Gaelic heraldic tradition for the Ó Comáin sept of Clare.

The commercial arms sold online as "Commane," "Cummins" or "Comyn" family crests are Scottish-Norman heraldry belonging to the House of Comyn of Badenoch — a dynasty from Flanders with no documented connection to the Gaelic Ó Comáin family of Clare, Munster or Connacht.

This conclusion is supported by the scholarship of E. St. John Brooks in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (1956), and is consistent with the broader scholarly understanding of how Gaelic families' heraldic memory was lost during the centuries of dispossession following the Anglo-Norman invasion.

The right approach — a grant of arms from the Chief Herald

Clan Ó Comáin is pending application with the Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland for a new grant of arms. This is the correct, most prestigious and most historically honest course of action available to the clan — a living heraldic document with full legal standing, grounded in one of the most thoroughly researched Gaelic pedigrees presented to the Chief Herald's office in recent years.

The grant will incorporate elements drawn from the ancient Gaelic Ó Comáin heritage — among them the mythical mermaid of Newhall Lake, the Irish harp, and the shamrocks of the family's saints. The Office of the Chief Herald recognises the concept of clan or sept arms, under which any member of the clan may display the arms — not merely the individual grantee. A grant to the Chief therefore provides a heraldic identity accessible to all members of Clan Ó Comáin worldwide.

This approach follows well-established precedent. Ancient Gaelic families whose arms were lost with their history have been granted new arms by the Chief Herald throughout the modern period, grounded in their documented noble and royal ancestry. The Ó Comáin pedigree — traceable to the Kings of Déisi Munster and the royal line of Uí Maine, documented in the Book of Lecan, the Book of Leinster and the Annals of Ulster — is among the most thoroughly documented presented to the office in recent years.

In the meantime

Members of Clan Ó Comáin are asked not to purchase or display the commercial "Commane arms" products sold online. These represent Scottish-Norman heraldry that does not belong to the Gaelic sept and perpetuates a historical confusion that this clan is working to correct.

Chief-approved use of the crest and coat of arms is available to registered clan members only. The story of that grant — an ancient Gaelic clan whose arms were lost with its history, now claiming its rightful place in the Irish heraldic tradition — will itself be a meaningful chapter in one of the oldest and most remarkable family stories in Ireland.

Join the clan NLI manuscript · vtls000540616