Irish Translation Forum

My last name is O'Donnell. I am researching my coat of arms and have seen the phrase "In Hoc Signo Vinces" associated with it in almost every instance. I'm pretty sure this means "In this sign you shall conquer" or something close to that. I have also on occasion seen the this included and can't figure out at all what it means...any help would be greatly appreciated! it says: "cinel luis (or luit) deac (or oeac)" - then "conn maccalbac 1565" I've researched this up and down and I know the chief in 1565 was "Calbhach" ...no leads on what the rest of those Gaelic or Latin words are. Attached is a picture from my coat of arms.

My last name is O'Donnell. I am researching my coat of arms and have seen the phrase "In Hoc Signo Vinces" associated with it in almost every instance. I'm pretty sure this means "In this sign you shall conquer" or something close to that. I have also on occasion seen the this included and can't figure out at all what it means...any help would be greatly appreciated! it says: "cinel luis (or luit) deac (or oeac)" - then "conn maccalbac 1565" I've researched this up and down and I know the chief in 1565 was "Calbhach" ...no leads on what the rest of those Gaelic or Latin words are. Attached is a picture from my coat of arms.

Yes, the In Hoc Signo Vinces means roughly "In this sign you shall conquer". As mentioned in that other thread, it's what the Emperor Constantine said he saw/heard in his vision, which led him to promote the Christian Church after he won the battle which took place after the vision. It has been translated into Irish before, usually as one of these two:
Is sa chomhartha seo a bhuailfidh tú [sa chomhartha seo = in this sign]
Is faoin gcomhartha seo a bhuailfidh tú [faoin gcomhartha seo = under this sign]

The other phrases you have are in Old Irish. The O’Donnell’s were the chiefs of the Cinel Conaill, an old tribal name in which cinel meant “people/tribe/race” (the modern Irish equivalent, cineál, has a number of meanings of a similar type, such as kind, species, class, or sort). I don't recognize "cinel luit" or "cinel luis". The "deac" might be déach (the added "h" would not have been written in Old Irish), meaning "second", although I'm not sure how that would fit the context. Sometimes people have trouble reading the old script, since some letters look like something other than what they are. If you look at the "Fonts" link to the left on your screen, you can figure out what letters are actually there, and then someone may be able to help more.

The "conn maccalbac" is an Old Irish form of the name Conn Mac Calbhach or Conn Mac an Chalbhaigh, meaning "Conn, son of Calbhach", where Calbhach, the name of the father or ancestor, is a descriptive name meaning "big-headed one" (many Gaelic names are descriptive in that way). The surname has been Anglicized mostly as Mac Calvey or as Calway.

Thank you so much, you helped a lot. I translated those fonts to "cinel luith dheach"...still looking for the meaning of that. I did some homework based on the other information you gave me and it looks like in or around 1565 the son (mac) of the chief (conn) was Calbhach" With the help of the English he took the throne form his Father and half brother uniting the divided area that the O'Donnell clan ruled. It appears that at this time the O'Donnell's...under rule of Calbhach were first recognized by the English as Nobility and the first time the current version of the O'Donnell coat of Arms was used.

The structure of the phrase "cinel luith deach" implies that the second word is either a noun or an adjective, and that the last word is an adjective, but Old Irish grammar is different from modern Irish grammar, so I can't speak with any certainty as to the way the words are arranged or what grammatical case each is in (and that can affect the meaning a good bit).
Here are some bits that might help point the way, but please take these with some healthy skepticism:

-- I don't know Old irish, apart from what bits I can find in dictionaries, and unfortunately there are many possibilities for luith over time, ranging from "hesitant", "dragging", and "stammering" to the contradictory "vigorous", "active", "eager", and "joyful". In the modern Irish word lúth, the concepts of "vigorous activity" and "joyfulness" have survived, and in the modern Scottish Gaelic lùth the concept of powerful movement or activity has survived.

-- In both languages, there is an adjectival form deach (in Scottish Gaelic deagh), with the basic meaning of "good", but in both languages it occurs now mostly as a prefix [often just dea-], rather than an adjective following the noun.

At a guess, then, "cinel luith deach" might mean something like "powerful good people". That's a total guess on my part, though.

Very Helpful...at least I have a good starting point for further research and a much better understanding....thank you!