It’s difficult to ingest your Rice Krispies and at the same time take in the state of the world. But I did hear some mention on the radio this morning that the Assembly’s been flag-discussing. Apparently, in an attempt no doubt to show how progressive they are, the Ulster Unionist Party have proposed that the Union flag should fly on some 17 days a year over the new councils and 365 days a year over Belfast City Hall. Predictably, this bright idea ( do they have someone who is paid to come up with them or do they just come out of Mike’s head spontaneously?) bit the dust in short order. Sinn Féin restated their case for no flags or both flags, Anna Lo restated the Alliance case for 17 designated days everywhere, and Gregory Campbell…
This is where I have to be careful because the Rice Krispies may have interfered with my brain’s capacity to receive Gregory’s message accurately. But I think I heard him say that he was behind the no flags or both flags line, providing it started with Dublin City Council.
Well now. If I heard Gregory accurately, this strikes me as a really good idea. An All-Ireland policy on flag-flying. No flag or both flags flying from Malin Head to Crossmaglen to the Dingle peninsula to Clew Bay. Admittedly there might be some problems in implementing it, especially as people from Gregory’s party have been telling us for so long that the 26 counties is a foreign country and they have no interest in the place. But let’s suppose we got past that. Let’s suppose the policy was implemented. What would be good about it?
Well, it’d be an example of Ireland implementing policy on a nation-wide basis. That has to be good, if for no other reason than that it might waken considerable numbers of the electorate south of the border to the fact that at least half a million of their fellow-countrymen live north of the border. Even more desirably, it would waken up such citizens to one aspect of life as we aspire to know it north of the border. Because at present there are those in the south who say republicans are asking far too much, wanting either no flags or both flags, and that even to vote for the Union flag on 17 occasions is provocative. Well, let’s see how the Irish people of the south react to something republicans north of the border can only aspire to.
How would they react, you ask, Virginia? They would go nuts. The idea of not being allowed to fly the Irish tricolour, much less fly it alongside the Union flag, would offend their sensibilities beyond endurance. I would be happy to bet that public reaction would force an abandonment of the policy within days. Which might, just might, remind Irish politicians and people south of the border that what they would see as outrageous, Irish politicians and people north of the border would be glad to accept. And yet we’re the troublesome, bolshie Nordies.
If you said what I think you said, I’m completely behind you, Gregory. Ask if you could propose it, or have it proposed, at the earliest opportunity in the Dáil.
I think you need to lay off the Rice Krispies Jude. 😉
The UUP have seemingly lost it.
Gregory is unfortunately being true to form.
I’ve bandied about an idea of 3 flags: http://amgobsmacked.blogspot.com.au/2013_11_01_archive.html
However, if we could focus on SF and their committal to ‘two flags or no flags’ then I would by a similar token to yourself (I think, if I’ve read your post properly) ask them to put their arguments into practice and actively lobby for every all-Ireland sporting body to do the same:
A union flag (or NI flag) accompanying a Tricolour over Lansdowne, Croke, Bundoran (surfing) wherever or no flags whatsoever.
Let them stay true to their ‘convictions’ and arguments regardless of what it may do to their voting base down south.
If they sincerely believe the arguments they’ve been coming out with regarding this topic then let them stand by these arguments.
Money. Mouth. Placement therein.
I often thought how the people of the twenty six counties would have reacted to discrimination, gerrymandering, RUC/UDR/UDA/UVF terror and all the other horrors inflicted on the North’s beleaguered Nationalist people. Then I remembered what they had done in similar circumstances, ie, got behind the IRA. If Gregory is seriously suggesting what he appears to be suggesting, and it is a big IF, then that is good. I rather suspect he wants no tricolours flying anywhere. Mind you he hasn`t yet objected to the Italian flag, unlike Willie Frazer.
PS I’ve replayed the BBC radio piece from this morning. Scrap that ‘I think’. Gregory’s for both flags or none over ‘Dublin City Hall’: “Because I’m all for it! I’m up for it!”
This may result in a seriously funny serial.
Jude :
Maybe Gregory and all the other flag – worriers should await Scotland’s decision on independence before deciding the fate of their “security blanket”.
They put so much store in the symbolism of the cloth that they may disappear up their own fundamental fundaments if the actual design has to be altered with the removal of Scotland’s St. George’s Cross part of the “Union” design should they choose to break away now or in a generation hence.What shape will a “Union” flag take then and who will argue the design logistics?
Mike TV and his Officials. has really showed up their small-mindedness by attaching himself and wasting so much valuable time to the “365 Days Wagon”. To be more british than Britain itself seems to be the delusion.The most important thing rattling around in empty heads it seems.
For those who might have some interest in such time-transient shenanigans, blowing away like so much sand in a changing universe,, you might like this….
.”Flag speculation after Irish Independence
When the Anglo-Irish Treaty was concluded on 6 December 1921 and the creation of the new Irish Free State was an imminent prospect, the question arose as to whether the cross of Saint Patrick should remain in the Union Jack. The New York Times reported that on 22 January 1922:
At the College of Arms it was stated that certain modifications were under consideration and that if any action were taken it would be done by the King in Council. No parliamentary action would be necessary. Heraldry experts say that alterations in arms are very expensive. Some years ago there was a demand from Irish quarters that the blue ground of the golden harp on the royal standard should be changed to green. It was then estimated that the alteration would cost at least £2,000,000. To remove all reference to Ireland from the present Union Jack and Royal Arms would be vastly more expensive.[
There was some speculation on the matter in British dominions also, with one New Zealand paper reporting that:
…the removal of the cross of St. Patrick Cross after 120 years will transform the appearance of the flag. It will certainly become a flag under which great victories were won in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but to most minds the sentimental loss will be great. Probably it will be found that the deletion is not absolutely necessary. Other possible changes include the abolition of the title of the United Kingdom, and the removal of the harp from the Royal Standard and the Coat of Arms, and the substitution of the Ulster emblem.
However, the fact that it was likely that Northern Ireland would choose not to remain part of the Irish Free State after its foundation and remain in the United Kingdom, gave better grounds for keeping the cross of St. Patrick in the Union Jack. In this regard, Sir James Craig, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland remarked in December 1921 that he and his government were “glad to think that our decision [to opt back into the United Kingdom] will obviate the necessity of mutilating the Union Jack.” Though remaining within the United Kingdom, the new Northern Irish government dispensed with the St Patrick’s Saltire in favour of a new flag derived from the coat-of-arm of the Burkes, Earls of Ulster, and quite similar to England’s St George’s Cross. This state-sanctioned flag was abolished in 1973 with the reintroduction of direct-rule from London over Northern Ireland.
Ultimately, when the British Home Secretary was asked on 7 December 1922 (the day after the Irish Free State was established) whether the Garter King-of-Arms was to issue any regulations with reference to the Union Jack, the response was no and the flag has never been changed.]
A Dáil question in 1961 mooted raising the removal of the cross of St Patrick with the British government; Frank Aiken, the Irish Minister for External Affairs declined to “waste time on heraldic disputations”……”
Just thought you’d like to know!!
Is the Tri Color flag paying the bills? Virginia is fairly sure that plays a part.
On behalf of Willie and co. do you mean the Irish or Italian tricolour???