Irish Flag

[ExileCelt]

Date and details of the origin of the Irish Flag, please include the reason behind the colours ?

[Grunty]

The Irish flag, or An Bhratach N�isi�nta, was adopted in 1919 and subsequently given Constitutional status in 1937. The white stripe represents peace between the Catholic Irish (green) and the Protestants (Orange).

[THECORBYLOON]

From An Taoisech�s site,

�Following the 1798 Rebellion which pitted orange against green, the ideal of a later Nationalist generation in the mid-nineteenth century was to make peace between them and, if possible, to
found a self-governing Ireland on such peace and union.

Irish tricolours were mentioned in 1830 and 1844, but widespread recognition was not accorded the flag until 1848. From March of that year Irish tricolours appeared side by side with French ones at meetings held all over the country to celebrate the revolution that had just taken place in France. In April, Thomas Francis Meagher, the Young Ireland leader, brought a tricolour of orange, white and green from Paris and presented it to a Dublin meeting. John Mitchel, referring to it, said: �I hope to see that flag one day waving, as our national banner�.

Although the tricolour was not forgotten as a symbol of hoped-for union and a banner associated with the Young Irelanders and revolution, it was little used between 1848 and 1916. Even up to the eve of the Rising in 1916, the green flag held undisputed sway.

Neither the colours nor the arrangement of these early tricolours were standardised. All of the 1848 tricolours showed green, white and orange, but orange was sometimes put next to the staff, and in at least one flag the order was orange, green and white. In 1850 a flag of green for the Catholics, orange for the Protestants of the Established Church and blue for the Presbyterians was proposed. In 1883 a Parnellite tricolour of yellow, white and green, arranged horizontally, is recorded.


Down to modern times yellow has occasionally been used instead of orange, but by this substitution the fundamental symbolism is destroyed. cont

[THECORBYLOON]

cont
"
Associated with separatism in the past, flown during the Rising of 1916 and capturing the national imagination as the banner of the new revolutionary Ireland, the tricolour came to be acclaimed throughout the country as the National Flag. It continued to be used officially during the period 1922- 1937, and in the latter year its position as the National Flag was formally confirmed by the new Constitution, Article 7 of which states: �The national flag is the tricolour of green, white and orange�.�

[THECORBYLOON]

Apologies, it's An Taoiseach...