Tattoo Designs Look Beneath The Design

If you are Irish, or have an Irish heritage you’re proud of, it may seem like a good idea to get a shamrock tattooed somewhere on your person. You may see it as a permanent declaration of your Celtic lineage, a proud symbol of one of Ireland’s most recognisable national symbols. But be warned; tattoos are often associated with criminal activities and gangs, and a tattoo design may have connotations that you aren’t aware of. In the case of the humble shamrock, this can be seen as a sign of belonging to the Aryan Brotherhood – one of the most prolific white supremacist gangs in operation today.

This is by no means an alien case, though perhaps it is an example of how an innocent symbol can mean something much darker. So when it comes to choosing a tattoo design, there’s a few things you need to watch out for – or you could end up declaring an affiliation you didn’t know existed.

Numbers are often used in criminal tattooing. Again with the Aryan Brotherhood, beware any design incorporating the number 12. This is used as symbolic, with “1” representing “A” and “2” representing “B” – AB, the initials of the name of the gang. This theme is continued with another white supremacist group, the Aryan Circle, used 13 for the same reasons. This too can be damaging, as many will use the supposedly unlucky number for poking fun at superstition, not realising the other associations.

Continuing on the numbers – and the white supremacist – theme, anything with two eights (88) incorporated into the design should be avoided. Again, using numbers to represent letters, 88 is used by Nazis – the 88 representing HH, or Heil Hitler.

Numbers and shamrocks are not the only seemingly innocent designs which have less than savoury associations. Many people like the idea of having one of the suits of a deck of cards, but these too are criminal symbols. Spades are seen as the suit of thieves, clubs are “criminal” and mostly used to symbolize ex-warriors. Diamonds is seen as the “chummy suit”, used for informers, and is most often applied without consent from the bearer. Worst of all is hearts – seen so frequently in tattoo design – which can mean “passive homosexual”, while at worst meaning the bearer is basically the prison sex toy.

Before tattooing anything permanently on to your skin, check the internet and make doubly sure there are no other meanings for whatever you’re about to choose.