Ireland's National Emblem – The Shamrock

1905

There are few plants, if any, that are as closely associated in the people's wind with any one nation in particular as is the little Irish shamrock with the joys and sorrows of the Emerald Isle.

In the ancient literature of Erin the word occurs variously as seamsog, seamrog, seamrego, shamrote, shamrocke, shamroke, shamrough or shamroote, shamrug, shamroge, seamar-oge and chambroch. The word "shamrock" is Erse, being derived from seamrog, a compound of seamar, meaning trefoil, and og, little — little clover. Scamar is supposed to be the same as sumar, obtained from the Celtic name of the clover — visnmarus.

As to the plant itself, it is generally considered that the true shamrock is either the black nonesuch or the Dutch clover, with a decided preference for the first named, on no less an authority than the curator of the Dublin Botanic Gardens and other competent persons. There are, however, some who hold that Trifolium repens or Trifolium minus is the true shamrock, and this opinion emanates from experts in the Agricultural Department at Washington.

Other writers have adopted the fancy of Bicheno, who advocated the right of the wood sorrel to this honor. This last belief may have arisen from the appearance of the word seamsoge, meaning wood sorrel, in old Irish writings, referring to the shamrock, but by those competent to judge this is thought to be a misprint, the word seamroge signifying meadow trefoil, having been meant.

The earliest references to the shamrock in Irish literature deal with it as a food plant. Campion, in his "Historic of Ireland," dated 1571, says, in speaking of the food of the common people: "Shamrotes, watercresses and other herbes they feed upon: oatmele and butter they cram together."