Origins & History

The story of the Enfield ‘beast’ begins a thousand years ago with a chieftain Teige Mor O’Ceallaigh who was one of the high Irish king Brian Boru’s loyal subjects. He fought and died in support of the king against an Irish-Viking alliance at the Battle of Clontarf, close to Dublin, which took place on 23^rd April 1014 A.D. According to an ancient text it was a fierce and furious struggle, the likeness of which was not to be found at that time.

“Never did I see a battle like it, nor have I heard of its equal; and even if an angel of God from heaven attempted its description, it seems doubtful to me that he could give it. But there was one thing attracted my notice there; when the battalions first met in conflict, each began to pierce the other, and there was a red ploughed field between us and them, and the sharp wind of the spring from them towards us; and we were not longer there than it would take to milk a cow or two cows, when no man in either host could recognise another, even though it were his son or his brother who was next him, unless he heard his voice, or knew the place where he was, so covered were all, both faces, heads, and garments, with drops of gory blood, borne by the clear cold wind that came from them to us.” _(i)

Chieftain Teige Mor O’Ceallaigh fell, “as a wolf-dog” pursuing the enemy Danes. The Gaelic word used to denote wolf-dog was ‘Onchu’ which was a mythical water dog creature that lived in lakes and rivers. A later chronicler of those events made the first reference to the legend of the beast.

“According to a wild tradition among the O’Kellys of this race, after the fall of their ancestor, Teige Mor, in the battle of Clontarf, a certain animal like a dog (ever since used in the crest of the O’Kellys of Hy-Many), issued from the sea to protect his body from the Danes and remained guarding it till it was carried away by the Uí Maine”_(ii)

The source was local folklore and the fabulous animal was the Onchu. The beast soon became inseparable from the O’kelly family and became its symbolic mascot in formal heraldry. The onchu may have been associated with other mythical serpents and dragons, which is the reason why the O’Kelly arms displays the Enfield as green.

The Onchu beast had its own much deeper background. The onchu would most likely already have been a tribal symbol for an ancient dog tribe and the inspiration may have been the otter, which the name oncú is sometimes given. If you think an otter isn’t that scary then hear an ancient poem which cites the wild onchu as a fearsome creature “so dread an armature it hath; a haughty, powerful monster, mightily venomous, furious, arrogant, sharp-clawed.” Today we also know of the very real Siamogale melilutra, a prehistoric otter-like beast from six million years ago. It had crushing jaws and was around six foot long!

Onchu to Enfield animal

Heraldry is a discipline relating to the special design and study of colourful symbolic imagery used to represent a particular name or line of family descent. Emerging in the 13th Century heraldic coats or arms soon became a sign of social status and the Enfield beast was used on the heraldry of O’Kelley family. The word ‘Enfield’ itself does not appear in any early Irish texts but was used from the sixteenth century onwards. The belief is that Gaelic dialects, and later Hiberno‐English pronunciation, may explain the link. Elements of the word onchu altered over time with the word evolving from Onchainn, Anfainn, Anfdd, Enfdd to Enfield. It is worth noting that the town name of ‘Enfield’ in Middlesex had its own similar evolution which was spirited enough to include: Enehfeud, (1200) Ainefeld (1205), Envill (1460), and Endfield (1638). Likewise, Edmonton had spellings that included: Adelmetone (1086), Elminton (1187), Edelynton (1397), and Elmuton (1550) before finding it’s modern name.

So, our mythical water onchu slowly evolved to become the clawed Enfield, a more heraldic beast that shed its aquatic dog-wolf visage to encompass a fox-wolf combination and where webbed claws became more avian.

The Enfield was never a renowned heraldic animal, like the unicorn or gryphon, but by the nineteenth century it was fully established with “the head of a fox, the breast feathered as an eagle’s, the foreclaws also of an eagle; the remainder of the body that of a wolf.” By 1909 attempts had been made to expand the menagerie and include the chest of a greyhound and body of a lion, and just the hind legs and tail of a wolf. These however were embellishments and not part of the original Enfield.

An English cousin?

Amongst very less established English heraldic creatures there is a little-known beast called an Alphyn. It first appeared in the late 15th century. Any real link is difficult to prove but it is possible that the Alphyn evolved in England and was then conveyed to Ireland where it intermingled with the Enfield. Alternatively, the Enfield beast may have been conveyed to England by officers of Irish heraldry and so it now survives as a distant cousin.

The Enfield comes to Enfield

The district of Enfield district took the Enfield beast into its coat of arms, granted in 1946. It was a ‘canting’ addition, where a name already matches a visual emblem. For example, a family named Fox might be given a fox on their coat of arms. The design was prepared in conjunction with the Lancaster herald of the College of Arms, Archibald George Blomefield Russell, an English art historian. The beast continued in the later Borough arms and became the logo for the Council in 1975.

In summary, the Enfield beast was born out of the water of mythical Irish lakes, stood for nine-hundred years watching over a single family, before being brought over the water to watch over its namesake home, a place born close to the same age as the beast itself. A strange story befitting a strange beast.