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Report on the Pedigree,
Titles and Arms of Thomas
Shannon Foran, Styled Duc de Saint Bar
Among the leading supporters of Terence MacCarthy, formerly known as 'The MacCarthy Mór, Prince of Desmond', was a certain Thomas Shannon Foran, styled 'Baron Foran, Duc de Saint Bar', 'Lord of Clonmeallane', and holder of the position of 'Referendary General' in MacCarthy's bogus Niadh Nask Order. Foran, the writer has been informed, was born in Connecticut in or about 1925, the son of John K Foran and Valerie Shannon. A long-time resident of Neuilly-sur-Seine in France, Foran claimed to be of 'an ancient Irish Family of the Kingdom of Munster', with descent from a King of Limerick who died in 350, and from a St Forannan who died in 581. Another alleged ancestor was Job Foran, an Admiral of the French Fleet who was created a Baron by Louis XIV in 1688. The ducal title of Saint Bar was purportedly conferred on yet another ancestor in 1799 by the King of Naples and the Two Sicilies. The territory of Saint Bar was said to be located in what was later to becomeYugoslavia, whose monarch King Peter allegedly confirmed Foran in his dukedom in 1941, in recognition of Foran's assistance to his family while on military service in the country.
Patent of Peter II, King of Yugoslavia, to Thomas Shannon Foran, dated 1941
Edward MacLysaght, who
usually makes reference to notable bearers of a surname, does not
mention a French branch of the Foran family, or any royal or saintly
connection, stating merely that the name in Gaelic is Ó
Fuaráin, and that it is found principally in Counties
Limerick and Waterford (More Irish Families, page 102). French
genealogists have put Thomas Shannon Foran's claims to the test and
found them to be severely wanting. Thus one unsigned report dated July
1993 notes that while there was indeed a seventeenth-century naval
figure named Job Forant, there is no evidence to connect him with
Foran's family ('Etude des Titres Nobiliaires: Baron de Louis XIV, Duc
de Saint Bar'). The respected heraldist and genealogist Baron
Hervé Pinoteau demonstrated that the Forant family was
originally Protestant and appears to have become extinct in the male
line in the mid-eighteenth century ('La Veritable Histoire des Marins
Forant'). There is no evidence that Job Foran was created Baron, and it
appears that Foran's baronial title is one he obtained in the
Republic of San Marino in 1965. Similarly, the claims concerning the
granting of the 'Duc de Saint Bar' title in 1799 cannot be verified,
and the 1941 patent above appears to be some sort of backdated
concoction. In any case, 'Saint Bar' should rightly be 'Stari Bar', a
ruined town in present-day Montenegro sometimes abbreviated to 'S Bar',
and the prefix means 'old' not 'saint' (http://mediateka.f.bg.ac.yu/files/S_Curcic/Stari_Bar/SBframe.htm).
It has also been pointed out that Foran could not have been on military
service in Yugoslavia in 1941, as he did not enlist in the United
States Army until some years later. Indeed he was aged only about 16 in
the year he allegedly received the above patent of nobility, which in
any case theYugoslav monarch did not have power to issue. As the first
cited report concludes, 'toutes les Notices de Thomas Foran sont
fantaisistes et sans fondement sérieux'.
Given that there were serious
questions in circulation concerning Foran's noble pretensions, one
would have expected the Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland to have
declined to countenance them. Unfortunately, as it had done in the case
of MacCarthy and so many other bogus and questionable claimants, the
Office embraced Foran's fantasies. Thus as late as 11 November
1994, Chief Herald Donal Begley issued an official patent confirming
arms to Thomas Shannon Foran, 'Baron Foran, Duke of Saint Bar' (Volume
X, folio 76, citing a Certificate of the Spanish Cronista Rey de Armas
and a 1978 exemplification by Chief Herald Gerard Slevin). Foran
is said to have introduced Terence MacCarthy and his associate Andrew
Davison to noble society in Europe, and to have facilitated their
acquiring membership of the Constantinian Order of St George. All three
gentlemen of course were able to produce official documents from the
Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland to validate their spurious
claims, demonstrating the level of corruption to which that department
had sunk. Thomas Shannon Foran died on 15 October 2005 in France, and
although the Office of the Chief Herald has been well aware for some
time of the falsity of his pedigree and title, his patent of arms
remains in place.