Setting the Record Straight

                                                     by

                                      Louis A.M. Mendola

The fields of heraldry, nobiliary titles and orders of chivalry provoke
eclectic views and lively debate. Nevertheless, it behooves those of us who
are knights in Catholic orders of chivalry to comport ourselves accordingly.

For better or for worse, virtually anybody can design and upload a web site.
Even people whose views I don't respect are entitled to their opinions, but an
article on self-styled Portuguese orders of knighthood at
<http://www.chivalricorders.org/chivalric/slfstlod.htm> includes defamatory
and inaccurate remarks regarding the moral character of several fine Irish
gentlemen with whom I have been acquainted for a number of years. To respond:

Denis O'Conor Don does not bestow an order of chivalry, but a familial
decoration known as the Companionate of the House of O'Conor. In the interest
of freedom of speech, it is the prerogative of Guy Stair Sainty, the author of
the article to which I respond, to dispute this decoration's "validity," but
the purpose and intentions of O'Conor Don are honorable. The Chief Herald
recognizes Denis O'Conor Don as Head of the House of Connacht. The
Companionate is an award which confers no rank, style or precedence. A simple
query to Dublin Castle would have clarified this matter.

It is not true that Scott MacMillan "persuaded the O'Conor Don to invent his
own order." Because, as an admittedly minor point of usage, he is simply
"O'Conor Don," not "the" O'Conor Don (1), I wonder whether Guy's quoted source
knows much about Irish history. O'Conor Don instituted and bestows this
decoration, which is not an order of chivalry, on his own initiative. For some
time, Mr. MacMillan has acted as the Secretary of O'Conor Don (who in
inherited his title from a cousin years ago), who is now in ill-health. Scott
has dedicated a great deal of time, effort and money in representing the House
of Connacht, at no economic or "social" gain whatsoever to himself.

I know Mr. Scott MacMillan to be a man of the utmost integrity and honor.
Likewise Mr. Daithi Hanly, longtime Chairman of the Heraldry Society of
Ireland. Mr. Sainty is sorely mistaken to question the integrity of these men
simply because he believes them to be acquainted with a party whose activities
he believes to be inappropriate. As I have likewise met the party in question
(at events of the Order of Malta), Mr. Sainty may likewise cast his disdain in
my direction if he so wishes.

After all, if "guilt by association" is to be the order of the day, anybody
who boasts a reasonably wide social circle must be suspect.

According to Mr. Sainty's tone, if not his explicit terms (I don't want to put
words in his mouth), being "high up in St. Lazarus" would seem tantamount to a
felony crime. While I do not accept the claims to historical continuity
advanced by the two "orders" of Saint Lazarus, this attitude strikes me as
ridiculous. (2) Such scorn is better directed toward the Ku Klux Klan and
other hate groups, not Christian charitable organizations.

Especially where personal reputations are concerned, it never hurts to get
one's facts straight before publishing defamatory remarks which may well be
actionable in libel law. If Mr. Sainty lacked the necessary facts regarding
Scott MacMillan and Daithi Hanly, he could at least have contacted them before
slandering them with impications that they are somehow involved in illicit
activities. An apology to Messrs. MacMillan and Hanly is clearly in order, as
is removal of the offending references to these gentlemen.

Finally, I wish to reiterate absolutely and unequivocally that in the many
years that I have known Scott and Daithi, neither gentleman has ever been
touched by even a trace of scandal. Both are fine Christians and devout family
men who I am honored to consider my friends. I do not know who Mr. Sainty's
sources are, but they themselves are surely suspect if they wish the general
public to believe that these two distinguished gentlemen are involved in any
wrongdoing whatsoever!

Many thanks to Caltrap for allowing me to set the record straight.

Notes:

1) See Debrett's Correct Form (1992 softcover edition), Part 3, under Irish
Chieftainries, footnote 1, page 96.

2) It is worth mentioning that I agree with Mr. Sainty on two historical
points, namely that Dom Duarte is the legitimate Head of the Royal House of
Portugal, and that the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus is the only order
of chivalry having proven historical continuity from the medieval Order of
Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem.