Originally Posted by
Erstwhile Bóz
If a flag can hold a symbolic meaning, then it is possible for that meaning to be altered over time. Particularly if people in your community have been murdered in the name of that flag. Murder equals ill will, does it not? (And I know that the other side, those animals, was much worse for that kind of thing, but they both did it, so shut up.)
I'm as united-Ireland as they come, and know my republican history, but I'm not certifiably insane enough to think that it's simply a matter of those eejits up in the North-East needing to be educated about what the orange bit on the other side of the white bit "means"; tough **** — that has been wrecked. It doesn't mean that for them, and to be brutally honest, they are the ones that count when you're talking about how orange fits into the whole thing. Next flag, please! Unfortunate, but true. When the country is eventually united, there's not a hope in hell of having the tricolour as the flag and trying to pass it off as a flag of unity. It's not the first innocent emblem to be so ruined and nor is it the first honourable aspiration of those who would unite Irishmen to have been completely ****ing raped by its supposed guardians.