Green Celtic knot shamrock tattoo with black outlines on the forearm, shown in a close photograph.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Green Celtic knot shamrock on an arm

Forearm · Colour · Photo

A four-leaf shamrock formed from interlaced looping bands, with one leaf-like loop extending into a tapering tail on the right. The bands are outlined in black and shaded in layered greens that give them a soft, dimensional look. The design is centred on plain skin against a pale background, with the whole tattoo visible.

Forearm Shamrock Celtic knot Clover Interlace Loop

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit down, sit down, and mind that coil of rope, it's been tarred since your mother was a girl. Now. You want to know why Dermot Hanna never once went past the Bull Rock without a length of green twine knotted inside his oilskin.

Keep reading

It was the winter the fog came down thick as wet wool, and nine boats went out from Portnaveagh with the herring running. Brid Doherty, who could tie a knot you couldn't pick with a needle, sat up three nights weaving that twine into a clover. Four leaves, every loop passing over and under the next, so there was no end to find and no strand could be cut off from the rest. But she left one leaf running long, a tail that tapered to a point, so a man lost in the murk could follow it like a wake.

When the fog closed round Dermot's boat, the others were gone and he couldn't see his own bow. He didn't cry out. He pulled the twine from his coat, laid it across the thwart and felt for the tail, which lay pointing the way the tide ran, toward the land. He trusted the thing Brid had made and he steered by it, and after an hour the gulls began screaming over the harbour mouth like a welcome.

So when you're out there and the sky goes grey and every direction looks the same, look for the long leaf. It doesn't matter who tied it. Now pass me that kettle before the fire gives up on us.