Ronson Sword

Transcript

Voiceover:

Now, in "A small piece of history", Keith Miller of the National Army Museum presents a favourite object from the Collection.

Keith Miller:

This particular sword is very much tied up with the history of Ireland.

In Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries the local militias were controlled by mainly English immigrants. Such a family were the Brownlows who were resident at Lurgan and who were MPs for Armagh.

This particular sword was presented to Charles Brownlow when he left the local unit which he formed. The men who were under his command would club together to get him a present when their captain left.

They could have gone to London to actually buy a presentation sword, which is what this is. However, they decided that they would go to Dublin. And they went to the man who was regarded as the best sword cutler in Ireland at that time, and probably throughout that whole period, a man called John Read of Trinity Square, Dublin.

John Read had a very specific and obvious style of swordmaking and you could always tell a sword by Read almost instantly you look at it.

The main thing would be these red leather inserts on the scabbard. He also put the Irish harp on the longettes here. But the thing that makes this most unusual, and in fact I've never seen another one, is this particular wheel. We call it the 'Ronson'.

Basically speaking it was to protect the base of the sword when it was dragged along the ground. However, we reckon that it would have created sparks at the time. So as Brownlow walked along he would be followed by a trail of sparks.