Eligibility Rules, Okay

Originally Posted by DannyInvincible

As for your own flag, it's a modified Union flag that, with the exception of one colour, adheres to the exact design specifications of a Union flag for obvious reasons; to convey a message that NI is British and proud. Or do you possess it for some other reason?

Actually, the Blue in my flag would not be the Royal Blue used in the Union Flag.

There's also a big IFA crest in the middle of it - which looks kinda Irish.

If I wanted to convey a message that Northern Ireland is British and proud, I would just have purchased a Union Flag.

This one might suit you more though:

http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/p...m/20219158.jpg

Originally Posted by Not Brazil

Actually, the Blue in my flag would not be the Royal Blue used in the Union Flag.

There's also a big IFA crest in the middle of it - which looks kinda Irish.

Indeed, it references both the NI football team (through the use of the IFA's crest and the green) and their British identity (through the use of the Union flag's specifications). Why else would its design be primarily based upon the specifications of the Union flag? Why not just use a flag featuring the IFA's crest otherwise?

Originally Posted by Not Brazil

That's correct - it's not a Union Flag. A Union Flag is Red, White & Blue.

If Nationalists/Republicans don't want to play for Northern Ireland, for whatever reason, I've no major issues with that - as you well know.

I've seen Red, White and Blue Tricolours at Linfield games - does that have Republic Of Ireland connotations?

That depends if those French flags are being flown to aggravate ROI fans after the playoff in 2009!

Originally Posted by Not Brazil

Actually, the Blue in my flag would not be the Royal Blue used in the Union Flag.

There's also a big IFA crest in the middle of it - which looks kinda Irish.

If I wanted to convey a message that Northern Ireland is British and proud, I would just have purchased a Union Flag.

So now you're saying they're not 'British and proud'?

Originally Posted by peadar1987

That depends if those French flags are being flown to aggravate ROI fans after the playoff in 2009!

That would be the only reason, surely...

Originally Posted by peadar1987

That depends if those French flags are being flown to aggravate ROI fans after the playoff in 2009!

Who said anything about French flags?

I don't think I've ever seen a French flag at a Linfield match.

Originally Posted by Not Brazil

That's a non Unionist flag - I don't think many Unionists would like that at all.

They may not. Maybe some ardent Loyalists though might prefer the idea of independence over Union with the Taigs. I can imagine as always the irony is lost on them.

Let's ask Wee Willy when he comes to "this" country on Saturday.

Originally Posted by Not Brazil

That's correct - it's not a Union Flag. A Union Flag is Red, White & Blue.

If Nationalists/Republicans don't want to play for Northern Ireland, for whatever reason, I've no major issues with that - as you well know.

I've seen Red, White and Blue Tricolours at Linfield games - does that have Republic Of Ireland connotations?

Originally Posted by Not Brazil

Who said anything about French flags?

I don't think I've ever seen a French flag at a Linfield match.

I know, imagine how foolish we are for assuming that a red, white and blue Tricolour might be a French flag.

We all know the penchant for the Windsor faithful for flying the Luxembourg, Dutch, Russian and Yugoslav flags.

Originally Posted by BonnieShels

Let's ask Wee Willy when he comes to "this" country on Saturday.

To add to the ludicrousness of that whole affair, I learned this evening that the Irish tricolour won't even be flying from Leinster House on Saturday as the Dáil won't be in session.

I know, imagine how foolish we are for assuming that a red, white and blue Tricolour might be a French flag.

We all know the penchant for the Windsor faithful for flying the Luxembourg, Dutch, Russian and Yugoslav flags.

Interesting fact for the vexillologist within; the original French flag designed in 1790 went in order of red, white and blue from hoist-side to right-side before the current reverse design was adopted in 1794.

So, it is a French flag they wave after all...



Wind-up merchants!

Originally Posted by DannyInvincible

To add to the ludicrousness of that whole affair, I learned this evening that the Irish tricolour won't even be flying from Leinster House on Saturday as the Dáil won't be in session.

Yip. It's been repeated ad nauseam here since Willie decide to come to the capital of the island.

Interesting fact for the vexillologist within; the original French flag designed in 1790 went in order of red, white and blue from hoist-side to right-side before the current reverse design was adopted in 1794.

So, it is a French flag they wave after all...



Wind-up merchants!

A French flag from 1794... If only they got their act together then and shut Emmet up we'd be grand now.

Though I would say that's a Dutch or Yugoslav flag hoisted arseways.

Though there's a French flag in the bottom right.

Impressed at the correct orientation of the UJ beside it.

Originally Posted by BonnieShels

They may not. Maybe some ardent Loyalists though might prefer the idea of independence over Union with the Taigs. I can imagine as always the irony is lost on them.

Indeed.

Didn't one of those links to some 'identity' poll way up thread, possibly via NB, ironically show an increased no.of unionists interested in 'independence.

Hmm.

I thought the only flag the French waved was the white flag?

Love the colours and the uniqueness in Europe of the Irish flag, and while as mentioned the initial symbolism is dead in the water, at least it was an attempt. So impressed were the Indians, they used the symbolism and colours in theirs, again this didn't work. As most flags were created from such historical ideology, it is virtually impossible for them to express present beliefs. Flags have always been hijacked by extremists in all countries, and aren't all discerning individuals able to understand this? Therefore why does it become such a vexation for many? No flag or anthem would please all, therefore let's stick with what we have.

Originally Posted by gastric

So impressed were the Indians, they used the symbolism and colours in theirs,

That has to be an urban myth. It's a nice thought, but I'm not convinced our tricolour was so globally awe-aspiring that it inspired the modern flag of India.

It didn't, it's a coincidence. Orange is the colour of Hinduism, green of Islam - the two dominant religions in India - and white represents the dozens of other traditions in the country.

Point taken. Having researched it, it seems some Irish missionary created the first Indian flag, well before independence, and with the common colours and philosophy, such myths occur. However, I think the rest of my post is vaild! Something I always found to be a bit incongruous, the philosophy of the flag and the lyrics of the national anthem.

Originally Posted by gastric

Point taken. Having researched it, it seems some Irish missionary created the first Indian flag, well before independence, and with the common colours and philosophy, such myths occur. However, I think the rest of my post is vaild! Something I always found to be a bit incongruous, the philosophy of the flag and the lyrics of the national anthem.

It stems from when each was adopted by the public consciousness and the "cause". Different feelings and ideals existed in Meaghers Waterford in 1848 than existed in Dublin and Frongoch in the 1900s.

Originally Posted by ArdeeBhoy

Didn't one of those links to some 'identity' poll way up thread, possibly via NB, ironically show an increased no.of unionists interested in 'independence.

Hmm.

I think you're confused again.

How so?

Originally Posted by gastric

Point taken. Having researched it, it seems some Irish missionary created the first Indian flag, well before independence, and with the common colours and philosophy, such myths occur.

Sister Nivedita's 1905 flag didn't share the same colours as the Irish tricolour, which was officially adopted in Ireland a decade and a half after Nivedita proposed her Indian flag. As far as I can make out, the flag she designed was merely a proposal that was presented to the Indian National Congress and wasn't even a tricolour; it was a scarlet square featuring yellow insignia:



Some info here:

One such proposal came from Margaret Noble (popularly known as Sister Nivedita) in 1905, the young Irish disciple of the nineteenth-century Hindu reformist and protonationalist Swami Vivekananda. Under Nivedita’s supervision, students at the Nivedita Girls’ School in Calcutta stitched a national flag, which she then presented to the Indian National Congress.

Nivedita’s visualization of Indianness conflated (a particular notion of) Hindu identity with Indian national identity. Thus, the flag had 108 jyotis, or oil lamps, around the border, a vajra, the thunderbolt symbol of the god Indra in the center, and the legend Vande Mataram (Victory to the Mother), the popular slogan of the antipartition agitations, inscribed across the flag in Bengali script (Singh 1991, pp. 20–21).

Although the idea to design a flag was inspired by international exemplars (such as the flags of the French revolution and the Boxer uprising in China), Nivedita was acutely conscious of the need to translate or indigenize this inspirational source by designing a flag that could resonate with Indians. As she confessed in a letter sent to a friend in England:

“Unfortunately I took the Chinese war-flag as my ideal and made [the Indian flag] black on red. This does not appeal to India, so the next is to be yellow on scarlet” (cited in Singh 1991, p. 20)

As we will shortly see, similar discussions about the appropriate colors and symbols of Indianness would be a common theme of flag debates throughout the nationalist movement and in the postcolonial period as well. Nivedita’s self-conscious location as an outsider may well have pushed her to adopt an overtly Orientalist version of what the authentic inner core of India looked like: oil lamps, renunciatory shades of yellow and scarlet, and holy thunderbolts as the visible signs of Hindu spiritualism.

Originally Posted by gastric

Something I always found to be a bit incongruous, the philosophy of the flag and the lyrics of the national anthem.

To which lyrics are you referring specifically? Those referring to "sons of the Gael" and the "Saxon foe" presumably?

Originally Posted by DannyInvincible

To which lyrics are you referring specifically? Those referring to "sons of the Gael" and the "Saxon foe" presumably?

You need to move on from copycat tuneless dirges about fighting foreigners. Something by the heavily metallic Saxon, maybe. "We've got rings, rings of steel"...