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Shields Name and Coat-of-Arms

    Shields is a Patronymnic version of Shield, and English occupational name for an armourer, the man who provided arms and implements to the soldiers.  It is occasionally derived from the Old English term sciedlu, which designated the shallow part of the river (ford?) and denoted a man who lived near there.

    Also, somewhat less frequently than all of the above, Shields can be an Anglicized version of  O'Siaghal or  O'Siadhail( which I believe is pronounced O'Sheel or O'Shale) which means the descendant of Siadhal, a Gaelic personal name of unknown meaning.

    Since our ancestors came from Ireland, I would think that the latter origin would be the most likely.  There is an extensive list of Irish names complete with notes that is maintained by an Irish organization at names.local.i.e.

The Shields coat of arms as drawn at the left, is described in 'Burke's General Armory' as "Ar, six hurts, two, two and two."  This is translated as Silver(background), with six hurts ( a blue circle) arranged in rows of two. 

Although it is likely that the origins of this coat of arms are English, it could have been used by some of our ancestors.  Neither Burke's nor Halbert's show a motto for the Shields coat of arms.

    There is another candidate for the Shields crest which is more likely, the correct Irish one.

                  Shields -    -  O'Shiel

The motto for the Shields herald is "Omne solum forti patria"

   The O'Siadhals were descendants of 'Niall of the Nine Hostages' (an original King of Ireland) who was also the progenitor of the O'Neills, a large clan of ancient Ireland, and more specifically a member of that clan named Siadail or Siadhail.  The prefix O' originally meant 'son of' and later 'descendant of' a certain person.   When Ireland was conquered by the English the name was phonetically anglicized as 'Shields'.
    The heraldic emblem is defined as 'Argent, a lion rampant, two dexter hands couped at the wrist, erect appaumée in chief and a mullet in base, all gules'.   Translated as 'Silver, a lion rampant, two right hands cut at the wrist high pointing up on each side, a star on the bottom - all in red' .  

    By origin and by the test of present-day distribution of population, O'Shiel is an Ulster name.  In Irish Ó Siadhail, it is usually anglicized as Shields, Sheils, Shiels or Sheilds rather than O'Shiel, and these forms are chiefly found in Counties Donegal, Derry. Antrim and Down.  Though claiming descent from Niall of the Nine Hostages, the O'Shiels were known as a medical family, rather than as a territorial sept.
    They became physicians to several great chiefs in various parts of the country.  The most famous of these was Murtagh O'Shiel, hereditary physician to MacCoughlan, who was killed in 1548.  An important branch of the family was settled in MacCoughlan's country with a seat at Ballysheil (in the parish of Gillen, Offaly).
    The two most notable men of the name were of this branch:  Richard Lalor Sheil (1791-1851), founder of the Catholic Association and second only to Daniel O'Connell in the struggle for Catholic Emancipation; and his brother Sir Justin Sheil (1803-1871), a soldier,diplomatist and staunch Catholic.
    Two others prominently identified with the Catholic cause in America were Senator James Shields (1806 - 1879), a Tyrone man, and Father Thomas Edward Shields (1862 - 1921).  Three centuries earlier Connach O'Shiel, Abbot of Ballysodare, who was appointed Bishop of Elphin by Henry VIII in 1545, rejected the new doctrines till his death in 1552.  After the Jacobite defeat several families of O'Shiel settled in France.  One of these (of Nantes) was admitted to the ranks of the French nobility in 1775.
    To-day the name is intimately associated with the stage and particularly the Abbey theatre - George Shiels being one of its most prolific playwrights.   William Shields (better known as Barry Fitzgerald) before going to Hollywood as an actor in that Dublin theatre.

From "Irish Families"