Green, white and gold(???)

Typing Dutchman

[font=&quot]Let me introduce myself: I'm a non-Irish lad with the habit to ask silly questions about Irish stuff.
The question that intrigues me at the moment concerns the colours of the national flag of the Republic of Ireland. As far as I know these are clearly described as "Green, white and orange", but in many song lyrics the colours are described as "Green, white and gold". The question is obvious know: why is that? I just can't image that these song writers are colour-blind.
Although I sleep well despite this pressing question (thank you), I definitely would like to know the answer.
Happy Typing,
Vincent
[/font]

jonnybadd

Possibly beacuse the orange signifies protestanism(sp), an image some irish folk would rather forget about. I could be way off but its just the first thing that struck me

Board@Work

Legally speaking the correct colours are green, white and orange.

My understanding of its origins, and I may be very incorrect, was that it was devised by a fenian in the mid 19th century based on the french republics tricolour. Again my understanding is that the green signifies the catholic nationist tradition and the orange the unionist one and white means peace between the two. I wonder if you wore it down the shankill who the residents understand that.

As for the green, white and gold, perhaps because gold is a far more romantic colour for poets and songwriters or more likely because people would rather forget what the orange stands for...

Typing Dutchman

I assumed it had something to do with the symbolism of the colour orange. Now this assumption is confirmed it brings up the next reflections:

By ignoring the orange the white, representing the hope for peace between the Green and the Orange, has become useless. So, what's the importance of the symbolism of the green, white and orange nowadays? Has it become a piece of historical information or is it still propagated as a value by the Republic of Ireland and by the Republicans in the North?

Capt'n Midnight

I usually regarded the white as being the bandages needed when both sides come together Seems odd devoting 2/3rds of a flag to a group who don't want it, but hey they'd have the deciding vote in a 32 county country.

Ignoring the symbolism and the way these things have been hijacked in the past, I like the design of a Golden Harp (Govt. Copyright) on a green background

pwd

generalising there quite a bit CM

Capt'n Midnight

A lot actually - but always did strike me odd that the flag was aspirational rather than actual. Odd thing is that that many of the rebellions in the past were non-sectarian with both sides uprising against what they saw as the common enemy. Still it's better than having red in the flag for all the blood shed.

'course you could say that it's more appropiate now that politicans / developers / RipOffIreland have got thier gold by bleeding the rest of us white...

Third_Echelon

Military Green, White and Orange are the official colours.

Before 1921/22 it was a green flag with the golden harp emblem...

These pages have a lot of the history on it:

http://www.irishaustralia.com/Irish/Anthem/flag.htm

http://www.factmonster.com/spot/irishflag1.html

Zaph

I've often heard older people refer to the flag as green, white and gold. My grandmother did so when she was alive, but I don't recall ever asking her why. As for gold replacing orange in poems and song lyrics, as any trivia fan will tell you, there's no word in the English language that rhymes with orange.

pwd

If you put on a bad french accent, melange does.

netwhizkid

Another reason not already mentioned here about why its called the green white and gold, is because of William of orange, he defeated king james II at the battle of the boyne in 1690 and thus we don't like any orange colour, and yet to this day those "lovely" neighbours of ours in the north aka terrorists continue to ravage catholic nationilist communitys every year on july 12th to celebrate williams victory at the battle of the boyne. It is this sort of outragous carry on that won't see peace up north until those foreginers are sent packing back to Scotland (they're not english), The majority of british people would rather see ireland become United as its costing them Billions,
Sorry i know alot of that was topic but that is what the Green, White and Gold used to to mean to old ireland pre 1995 to 2005 economic boom yrs ask any 13 to 20yr old and they'll answer with "i dunno" or aren't we all europeans.

Regards netwhizkid

pwd

netwhizkid wrote:

Another reason not already mentioned here about why its called the green white and gold, is because of William of orange, he defeated king james II at the battle of the boyne in 1690 and thus we don't like any orange colour, and yet to this day those "lovely" neighbours of ours in the north aka terrorists continue to ravage catholic nationilist communitys every year on july 12th to celebrate williams victory at the battle of the boyne. It is this sort of outragous carry on that won't see peace up north until those foreginers are sent packing back to Scotland (they're not english), The majority of british people would rather see ireland become United as its costing them Billions,
Sorry i know alot of that was topic but that is what the Green, White and Gold used to to mean to old ireland pre 1995 to 2005 economic boom yrs ask any 13 to 20yr old and they'll answer with "i dunno" or aren't we all europeans.

Regards netwhizkid

I can't imagaine anyone saying "aren't we all europeans"

That post makes you sound like a reactionary moron.

1203_axle_d3

I think we should scrap our current flag for an all green one with a harp in the centre..

qwertyphobia

like most other people I always though it was republicians feeling unhappy with the orange and so dropping it. But i had a mad nationlist school teacher long long time ago who claimed that the gold reperested the Vatician colours

Hagar

The green flag with the gold harp is the Leinster flag isn't it ?

The oldest flag I have heard of is a blue flag with a gold harp.
This is now used as the Presidential flag.

Does no one else except me notice the irony of a Dutchman asking about orange in our national flag?

Take back your orange and send us over a few of those high class hoors from Amsterdam and we'll call it quits.

pickarooney

As far as I know the colours on the flag represent three aspects of Irish culture, one of which was directly influenced by Holland. That's why we have green, white and (Dutch) gold.

glennn

Typing Dutchman wrote:

[font=&quot]Let me introduce myself: I'm a non-Irish lad with the habit to ask silly questions about Irish stuff.
The question that intrigues me at the moment concerns the colours of the national flag of the Republic of Ireland. As far as I know these are clearly described as "Green, white and orange", but in many song lyrics the colours are described as "Green, white and gold". The question is obvious know: why is that? I just can't image that these song writers are colour-blind.
Although I sleep well despite this pressing question (thank you), I definitely would like to know the answer.
Happy Typing,
Vincent
[/font]

As others have said, it is probably just not wanting to acknowledge the Prosteant orange.

MG

qwertyphobia wrote:

like most other people I always though it was republicians feeling unhappy with the orange and so dropping it. But i had a mad nationlist school teacher long long time ago who claimed that the gold reperested the Vatician colours

I think the tricolour was originally green white and yellow i.e. Green + the Vatican flag. The idea of a tricolour came from the French tricolour. Have heard the theory of the change to orange to represent peace between the two communities but not sure what the truth is.

Executive Steve

no mate, was always green white and orange.

there's proddies south of the border too you know! the first tricolour was brought to ireland by a colourful figure called Thomas Francis Meagher - there's a statue to him down in Waterford went up recently [my stepmother made it!]

the three colours symbolise the unity of all traditions in the state, in a Wolfe Tone kind of United Irishmen way... anyone who says it has anything to d with the vatican is talking out of their cakehole and is merely a reactionary muppet.

*edit* added a link! the story here is *somewhat* bowdlerised.... Meagher was a notorious drunk and a gambler, and contemporary accounts vary as to whether he jumped off the side of the mississippi river boat, was pushed off or fell off... either way, there was a game of poker involved!

http://www.helenamontana.com/meagher/

Typing Dutchman

Thanks all for your input!

All things considered I think we can conclude that the symbolism of the colour green, white and orange is merely historical. The next obvious question is of course: what happened with the Protestants in the Irish nationalistic movements. Many leading figures of the United Irishmen and Young Ireland were Protestant.

What happened in, well let's say the end of the nineteenth or beginning of the twentieth century which caused the withdraw of Protestants in such organisations?

MG

Research agrees that it was indeed originally Orange but yellow was occasionally used especially by Catholic Groups before an official flag was adopted in 1937.

supersheep

Typing Dutchman wrote:

Thanks all for your input!

All things considered I think we can conclude that the symbolism of the colour green, white and orange is merely historical. The next obvious question is of course: what happened with the Protestants in the Irish nationalistic movements. Many leading figures of the United Irishmen and Young Ireland were Protestant.

What happened in, well let's say the end of the nineteenth or beginning of the twentieth century which caused the withdraw of Protestants in such organisations?

Hmmm... Off the top of my head, I'd say it was the change in emphasis from Home Rule to Nationalism. As far as I recall, Protestants were involved in the Home Rule movement for a good portion of its existence (they founded it, but I dunno if they were still around by 1916 - anyone?), but after that, the focus changed to complete independence from Britain, which may have been a less appealing possibility to Protestants.
Anyone who actually knows, and isn't just theorising, feel free to correct me...

The Lopper

Personally i'd prefer the green with the harp backround, although its not for hating protestants, on the contrary i have Protestant relations and they can speak Irish better than myself.

The blue with a gold harp was used on a shield for the King Of England i think, it used to take up one quarter of it to symbolise Éire being ruled by the King of England. I think it used to have a woman as part of the harp, but its a long time since i've seen the shiled, so i'm not sure.

stevemac

on of the main reasons that a lot of prodestanst were involved in the Home Rule was because for a lot of the Home Rule Period catholics were not allowed vote , own land become an MP. So most high profile Home Rulers were prodestants. Not sure how many , or what percentage of the people involved 1916 onwards were catholic / prodestant, but by that stage catholics could vote and own land so more were coming to the top.

With the Green White and Gold bit, just a childish and obvious reason a lot of people say Gold. When your a kid, i thought the colour was Gold, until i was corrected. Plus Green White and Gold sounds better than Green White and Orange.

supersheep

Catholics could vote from 1829 onwards, long before Home Rule became a major issue. Indeed, Daniel O'Connell, the Great Liberator, was opposed to Home Rule (I think... either Home Rule or unions... or possibly both...)

Fenian

Green is for the Catholics,white is for the Presbyterians and orange for the protestants, if I'm not mistaken.

pwd

There are sub-divisions within Protestantism. Church of Ireland Protestants are essentially the Irish version of the Church of England, for instance. Historically, the Protestant Ascendancy would have been Church of Ireland (for example).

Quakers and Methodists are other breeds of Protestantism. Both these groups were considered dissenters, since they opposed the treatment of Catholics in Ireland, and consequently were subjected to similar treatment by the ruling classes.

By no means do I mean to suggest that all COI people were Loyalist, or that all Methodists were Nationalist, but they were treated as such way back nonetheless. Indeed many of the early Planters in Ireland were assimilated to the point where they became "More Irish than the Irish themselves".

Apologies if there are any inaccuracies in the above. I am drawing on my memory of Junior Cert history books.

I don't if Fenian is kidding about white representing Presbyterians. It represents peace between the two groups, as already stated.

I saw a tricolour flying in Ennis with the orange section torn off. This seemed like a completely acceptable thing to do, I think it was outside a shop. I found that rather unsettling - the fact that it was "ok" to do that there.

supersheep

I'd say it shows the traditional nationalist love for unionists... To do that to our flag, even if you are a nationalist and hate unionists, is a sign of utter disrespect for our country, our flag, and those who died for that flag - basically, any nationalist who does that is disrespecting the IRA they purport to support.

LegacyUser

Normally I wouldn’t put this much effort into formulating a response to the OP’s query, and I’m happy to see that most posters agree it is Green/White/Orange. Anyone disagreeing with this on sectarian/historical grounds, while entitled to express an opinion, obviously hasn’t got their facts straight.

Let’s start with the Bunreacht Na hÉireann (Constitution Of Ireland) - Enacted by the People 1st July, 1937; In operation as from 29th December, 1937

Bunreacht Na h&#201 wrote: »

Article 7
The national flag is the tricolour of green, white and orange.

http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/upload/static/256.pdf

This is an inescapable fact. There are several theories floating around about the origins etc. of the tricolour. As a previous well-informed poster said, the flag was first introduced by Thomas Francis Meagher during the revolutionary year of 1848 as an emblem of the Young Ireland movement, and it was often seen at meetings alongside the French tricolour

The green represents the older Gaelic and Anglo-Norman element in the population, while the orange represents the Protestant planter stock, supporters of William of Orange. The meaning of the white was well expressed by Meagher when he introduced the flag. 'The white in the centre,' he said, 'signifies a lasting truce between the 'Orange' and the 'Green' and I trust that beneath its folds the hands of the Irish Protestant and the Irish Catholic may be clasped in heroic brotherhood.'

It was not until the Rising of 1916, when it was raised above the General Post Office in Dublin, that the tricolour came to be regarded as the national flag. It rapidly gained precedence over any which had existed before it, and its use as a national flag is enshrined in the Constitution of Ireland.

The heraldic harp is invariably used by the government, its agencies and its representatives at home and abroad. It is engraved on the seal matrix of the office of President as well as on the reverse of the coinage of the state. It is also emblazoned on the distinctive flag of the President of Ireland - a gold harp with silver strings on an azure field.

The model for the artistic representation of the heraldic harp is the fourteenth century harp now preserved in the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin, popularly known as the Brian Boru harp.

The difference between the national flag and the presidential harp seal is the same as the difference between the USA flag, Stars and Stripes, and the United States national seal, which we’ve all seen, the eagle etc. on the blue background.

Beyond these facts, IMO anyone who would desecrate the Irish flag for any reason, because it’s orange and not gold or whatever, is a fool who’s shows their mindless ignorance and bigotry by their actions. It’s an insult to everyone who has served for our country, and represented our country proudly in any manner. The flag is the Irish national flag, not the Catholic Irish flag, or the Protestant Irish flag, or the Islamic Irish flag, or the Jewish Irish flag, it is simply the Irish flag, and being Irish is something we are born with, are taught by our elders, and acquire throughout our lifetime. It is a sense of nationality and identity, not a religion or anything else like that.

bru

Typing Dutchman

I'm well aware of the facts, but nevertheless there are apparently some folks using a Green, White and Gold tricolour and I was curious why.


Some very interesting theories are posted in this forum during the last weeks (thanks you all) and to make things even more complicated I've figured out one by myself. Remember it's just a thought waiting for your comments.


What if the deliberate use of Green, White and Gold is the result of discontent in Irish Republican cycles with the Northern Ireland policy of the Republic of Ireland. Obviously Im referring to Section 31 of the 1971 Broadcasting Authority Act, the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, and – of course – the repeal of Articles 2 and 3 of the Bunreacht na hÉireann.


This theory can be trashed if someone can point out that Green, White and Gold was already deliberately used in the 1960's.

Vincent

supersheep

A nice theory. And even if it was in use prior to the 70's, it could still stand - after all, there has been dissatisfaction with our governments' Northern policies from the 20's on.

tonyinuae

On another irish site I contribute to, this whole question (Irish nationalism, the North, Independence etc.) is a really vexed one. Some of the contributors are from the North, and others are dyed-in-the-wool Brits Out type Republicans. Well, fair enough, everyone has the right to their opinion.

But I foolishly aired my less-than-extreme moderate views regarding the North and the UK, and was roundly, and personally, denounced for it. This site (boards.ie) appears to have a majority of younger contributors, and I have the feeling the younger generation are less extreme in their views - am I right in this? I sure hope so!

supersheep

Don't know now... I think there will always be extremists. Those motivated to post on a political forum will probably be quite close to extremists of SOME position. And, in my experience in my home town at least, the youngsters are more likely to be vocal in their support for extremists - listen to everyone shout "up the 'ra" next time you're in a country pub...

LovelyHurling

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Seems odd devoting 2/3rds of a flag to a group who don't want it, but hey they'd have the deciding vote in a 32 county country.

Religion has absolutely nothing to do with the trouble in the north. Politically, the unionists tend to come from CofE and Presbyterian backgrounds, and SinnFeiners from Catholic, but that's not what caused the troubles or the Irish War of Independence or any Fenian rebellion that took place in the south.

I was born into the Church of Ireland, lived in quiet Dublin suburbs for 13 years, then the folks moved to quiet Tyrone suburbs that's where home is now. I, and all of my Church of Ireland friends in Dublin, where Im in college, would call themselves Irish, vote, pay taxes to the government, go to Irish Universities. Your statement and such expressions like it are obsolete in today's Ireland. I am very proud that hurtful discrimination towards both Catholics and Protestants can be acknowledged and, even symbolically, repented for, on the national flag.

like most other people I always though it was republicians feeling unhappy with the orange and so dropping it. But i had a mad nationlist school teacher long long time ago who claimed that the gold reperested the Vatician colours

I think there is a big problem with how Irish History is taught in all primary schools both Catholic and mixed Protestants. Too biased... two different religious schools where I grew up in Booterstown - two classes learned different histories

Mick86

Typing Dutchman wrote:

[font=&quot]Let me introduce myself: I'm a non-Irish lad with the habit to ask silly questions about Irish stuff.
The question that intrigues me at the moment concerns the colours of the national flag of the Republic of Ireland. As far as I know these are clearly described as "Green, white and orange", but in many song lyrics the colours are described as "Green, white and gold". The question is obvious know: why is that? I just can't image that these song writers are colour-blind.
Although I sleep well despite this pressing question (thank you), I definitely would like to know the answer.
Happy Typing,
Vincent
[/font]

Poetic licence, I imagine.

Dfitzer

The reason singers refer to the green white and gold is quite simple - how many words can you put in a song that rhyme with orange.

freefromgov

Ok guys... lets see how you do with this one... why do the different harps on the irish flags have different numbers of strings... 15 on the presidential seal 14 on the back of the euro coins in your pocket 13 on the courts 12 on the sovereign seal of the people etc... there are many more ... 9 on passports 12 driving licences some banks have 5/6 string harps ... oh! and there is a reason for it, also look at the constitution and look at article 7 .... is that the flag you see flying in dail éireann ?? really look again "Gold Fringe" surrounding the flag !!! that means it's an admiralty flag ( they got the flag surrounded ...get it?) this fringe (or rag on the flag as i have heard it called) does not belong there and only appeared in feb 2007 I Believe.... Oh also look on page 62 of hotpress magazine to see (apparently) the real President of the republic of Ireland.....

brianthebard

wtf? vamp thread begone.