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Post by cato on Aug 14, 2019 11:09:13 GMT
I recall a time in Ireland during the bad old days of the troubles when the Irish tricolour was it was largely supporters of the provos who were associated with the national flag. I don't recall any of the National schools I went flying the flag but they did display copies of the 1916 proclaimation sent around to all schools in 1966. The Fine Gael leaning school chaplain in my secondary school removed a tricolour boarders put up in a common room in the 1980s and ignored our protests to return it.
I do find the attitude of some Irish people to the flag deplorable and cheap. I am thinking here of sports fans who write on the flag , draw pictures on it or who treat it like a piece of casual clothing. There is a code , which should be taught in school, about how to respect the flag which ultimately symbolises the nation and our attitude to it.
For example there are ways to hoist, lower and fold the flag. During 2016 the army had a daily ceremony outside the GPO on a specially constructed flag pole where the flag was flown each day. It was a quiet but impressive dignified ceremony. An ex army colleague of mine however recently enthused the army flew the gay pride rainbow flag over Leinster house using the same protocol!
I was recently in the presence of the current Irish president , I wore a small Irish flag in my lapel. As I was ushered into the personal space of the august one I could see the look of spontaneous alarm as he glanced at the flag. He met mostly "new Irish " that day. The older Irish may become the unwelcome guests in the future. Some are becoming more Irish than the Irish themselves, at least in the eyes of the Irish establishment.
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Post by servantofthechief on Aug 14, 2019 19:21:43 GMT
I was recently in the presence of the current Irish president , I wore a small Irish flag in my lapel. As I was ushered into the personal space of the august one I could see the look of spontaneous alarm as he glanced at the flag. He met mostly "new Irish " that day. The older Irish may become the unwelcome guests in the future. Some are becoming more Irish than the Irish themselves, at least in the eyes of the Irish establishment. I mean no harm to the gent, but his reaction is not especially out of place in this day and age of leaders who dont particularly like the country they lead. Merkel being famous for putting away a German flag one of her fellow politicians was waving on a stage. Macron trying his damnedest to drive a wedge between nationalism and patriotism for the sake of disarming any French pride in their bonjour-croissant-honhonhon-Frenchiness, (I kid, my Francophile friends). We are in an era of globalism, our state is in lock step with our media and I will hazard a guess that they actually hate our country as much as other leaders seem to hate theirs. He saw you with a flag pin and thought, quite reasonably, you were a nationalist of the Northern Sort, because we seem to be the only ones outside the military who treat the flag with some kind of reverence, even if we do fly it from every electricity pole available, especially around St. Patrick's Day and Easter. Which is less gauche and more working class enthusiastic patriotism, same you'd find in the poorer areas of say, East Berlin, where working and lower class German folk plaster the flag everywhere they can. Even half their graffiti is little more than the German Tricolour sprayed on dry, Communist era concrete walls. For some, the flag is the only thing they're allowed. In the eyes of the establishment the New Irish are only becoming 'more Irish than the Irish themselves' as far as they conform to the new definitions of Irishness the Establishment promotes. They're mostly not, of course, but neither are they integrating with the 'Old Irish' way of things all that much either and thats 'good enough' as far as they are concerned. We will have more hostility towards 'flag waving' patriotism in this country the more pronounced anti-establishment nationalism becomes. The media grip is too tight in this country, they won't allow it to slip and so they'll react. I am unconcerned, however, about either us Old Irish becoming a minority or the flag being replaced, as those Traitors in Sinn Fein seem keen on entertaining. (I have my own gripes about the flag, but my gripes is about it being based on the Jacobin flag of France, I am a Catholic monarchist, so you know, but so long as its the flag of the country it is still my flag) Things are coming to a head in too many places for all this craic and carry-on to continue. Brexit is coming, the EU is unsustainable, one way or another the bubble in Dublin is going to burst, and economic hardship will cast everything in stark reality. Which of course is nothing by itself to look forward to, but in context, its a blessing in disguise. |
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Post by Séamus on Aug 24, 2019 12:25:19 GMT
I recall a time in Ireland during the bad old days of the troubles when the Irish tricolour was it was largely supporters of the provos who were associated with the national flag. I don't recall any of the National schools I went flying the flag but they did display copies of the 1916 proclaimation sent around to all schools in 1966. The Fine Gael leaning school chaplain in my secondary school removed a tricolour boarders put up in a common room in the 1980s and ignored our protests to return it. I do find the attitude of some Irish people to the flag deplorable and cheap. I am thinking here of sports fans who write on the flag , draw pictures on it or who treat it like a piece of casual clothing. There is a code , which should be taught in school, about how to respect the flag which ultimately symbolises the nation and our attitude to it. For example there are ways to hoist, lower and fold the flag. During 2016 the army had a daily ceremony outside the GPO on a specially constructed flag pole where the flag was flown each day. It was a quiet but impressive dignified ceremony. An ex army colleague of mine however recently enthused the army flew the gay pride rainbow flag over Leinster house using the same protocol! I was recently in the presence of the current Irish president , I wore a small Irish flag in my lapel. As I was ushered into the personal space of the august one I could see the look of spontaneous alarm as he glanced at the flag. He met mostly "new Irish " that day. The older Irish may become the unwelcome guests in the future. Some are becoming more Irish than the Irish themselves, at least in the eyes of the Irish establishment. Were would we rate Ed Sheeran's tri-colour shamrock tattoo? |
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