Talk:Saint Patrick's Flag

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Contents

[edit] Request to Merge Article

Based on discussions in the Saltire and Saint Andrew's Cross articles, I request that Saint Patrick's Flag be merged into wherever those two articles eventually become merged into. I propose a new article entitled Saltire Cross; encompassing the heraldic design and origin of the Saltire (also called the St. Andrew's Cross and St. Patrick's Cross), and the design's use on flags such as those of both Scotland and Ireland. This would consolidate similar information, expand overall information on the same subject (the saltire), eliminate confusion, and make things more user-friendly. Thanks! --Dulcimerist 18:33, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

The Wikipedia flag of Amsterdam image page could also be referenced, as that flag contains three saltires. --Dulcimerist 18:56, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I remove my request for merger, as this article's sister flag article, Flag of Scotland, has kept its own page. The heraldry articles of Saint Andrew's Cross and Saint Patrick's Cross have been merged into Saltire by consensus. --Dulcimerist 01:48, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Ireland Project

I've added this article to the Wikipedia Ireland Project; since its sister article, Flag of Scotland is in the Wikipedia Scotland Project. These two articles should be treated in a similar fashion. --Dulcimerist 01:48, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Irish Topic Template

If someone can correct the code for the Irish topics template, go for it. Thanks! --Dulcimerist 04:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I have never seen such a template, so I removed it from the article. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 14:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good. In the event that the Wiki Project on Ireland has a template such as this, I trust that they will insert the proper template code into the article. --Dulcimerist 23:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Flags of the United Kingdom

Should this be included in the "Flags of the United Kingdom" series; or is that series designated only for current flags, not historic flags? The Saint Patrick's Flag is used in the Wiki diagram of how the Union Jack was formed, so I feel that the Saint Patrick's Flag would be appropriate in the U.K. flags series. --Dulcimerist 23:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

You mean {{UKFlags}}, don't you? I don't think it is notable enough; its notability arises primarily from its use in the Union Flag, whose article covers it adequately. However I do think it is British enough to be in List of British flags, which it isn't right now. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 03:32, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Saint Patrick's Flag Not a British Invention

I didn't add the fact tag to the comment on nationalists seeing saint paddy's being a British invention, however i know many don't associate to it due it being used by the Irish Guards. Yet the flag is an Irish invetion, though of an Anglo-Irish one, if i can dig up the saved webpage it has references that show the flag was used by the Fitzgeralds or Fitz-somethings long before the Order of Saint Patrick ever did. Mabuska 23:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

It being worn by the Irish guards has nothing to do with it. See the Flags of the World entry, especially the section on contemporary opinion on the flag (from 1783) e.g. "One press report from February 1783 complained that 'the breasts of Irishmen were to be decorated by the bloody Cross of St Andrew, and not that of the tutelar Saint of their natural isle'. Another article reported that 'the Cross of St Andrew the Scotch saint is to honour the Irish order of St Patrick, by being inserted within the star of the order' and described this as 'a manifest insult to common sense and to national propriety'." It simply was never a flag of Ireland (for nationalist, Anglo-Irish or unionist) and where where it came from is bewildering. The Fitzgerald connection is tenious - there's no evidience to say that it was a symbol of their's, and when that story appeared, nobody knows. The common "cross of Saint Patrick" was a cross pattee, of the kind that you - may or may not - recieve on Ash Wednesday in Ireland.
Also, in 1783 you cannot talk about it being a "flag". It was a badge for the Order of St. Paddy. I have heard people say that it was flown as a flag during this period (a 17-year window before the Act of Union) but I have never seen any evidience, which I would need to believe it - why would a badge for a newly created royal order suddenly become the "flag of Ireland", especially when the badge itself was not liked? The "badge" was integrated into the Union Flag in 1800 and more likely a "flag of Ireland" (which hithertofore did not exist) was 'reverse engineered' from that. Why was it used for the Union Flag? The only reason I can think of is because this is prettier to this - yet, note that the latter is the older by a century-and-a-half.
Today the only organization that I know to use it as a "flag of Ireland" is the Church of Ireland - then with good cause: to avoid flying the tricolour in the South and Ulster banner/Union flag in the North. Ironic though (or proof of the enduring quality of symbols of this kind) that they give the alternative of flying their own logo in its place: a cross pattee. --sony-youthpléigh 08:48, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] National Flags Tag??

I see that there is a tag at the bottom of this article for National Flags. As St. Patrick's Saltire is not a national flag, nor used by any government to represent a nation on an official capacity, i propose that this tag be removed. --  RÓNÁN   "Caint / Talk"  12:35, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Use on TCD seal

Is there evidence that the use of a saltire on the TCD seal is as a "flag of Ireland"? TCD is the sole college of the University of Dublin, not of Ireland. Similar motifs are used on the city seals of Cork and Enniskillen, but surely the Dublin press of 1873 would have been familiar with the TCD seal and, if that had originated from a flag of Ireland, would not have be so surprised and angry at its choice for the Order of St. Patrick badge. --sony-youthpléigh 01:14, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History pre-1783

Given the clunking obviousness of the symbolism on the arms of TCD the use of the red satire on the arms of other towns in Ireland and the references to a flag of this character in the seventeenth century up to and including an ascription of precisely this design to Ireland in a number of continental works it is unsustainable and tendentious to ascribe the origin of the flag to the creation of the order of St Patrick. It is certainly true that the controversy in 1783 is significant and needs to mentioned and discussed in an article of this nature but it is not on to decide in advance to disregard the clear evidence that this flag was used before 1783. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.133.7.37 (talk) 17:56, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

This is discussed in the article. There were definitely red saltires flown in Ireland prior to 1783, and discussion about that is important, but it is far from certain that these were related to St. Patricks flag - a red saltire is not the most unusual of flags. If it it existed prior to 1783 then it certainly was not well known and not very strongly associated with Ireland as a national flag. (For all the groups that have ever flown flags in Ireland during the time, surely one would have used a saltire, if it had had a strong association.) Even after 1783, I've never seen any evidience of it been used as a flag before the Act of Union. In fact, 19th century official British sources say that Ireland never had a flag before the Union flag (I'll try and dig this source up if you need).
If it were in use before 1783 then it would surly have been the natural choice for the protectorate flag in 1658, producing the current Union Flag, instead of the 1707 Union Flag with the Irish arms superimposed. Likewise, the 1649 commonwealth flag uses the harp rather than a saltire, which surely would have made more sense if it had existed.
Certainly, the Dutch book of 1693 put a red saltire as a flag of Ireland, but there is no evidence for this on the ground in Ireland. What's more, in (co-incidentally) 1783, and English author copying from that book either 'corrects' or 'mistranslates' Ierse (the caption used in the book) as being Jersey, not Ireland (the Flag of Jersey was an identical saltire until 1981). Someone a little closer to home, correcting an obvious mistake, maybe? --sony-youthpléigh 18:37, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

If we are to call it a Hanoverian invention that doesn't take us very far we still need some explanation for the invention. As it is the TCD seal is so clear it is very hard to support the Hanoverian view. Once we admit that it did exist in 1612 the grounds for dismissing the rest of the evidence as a Burgundian Cross of St Andrew becomes very weak. If the red saltire was new it is hard to explain all this evidence. If it wasn’t new it is hard to explain why people were annoyed in 1783. Unless some alternative explanation for the arms of TCD can be produced the burden of proof is very firmly on those who deny its status as an historic Irish flag. If we knew why the Fitzgeralds have the arms they do (they must have some symbolism) and how old their arms are that might be interesting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.133.7.37 (talk • contribs)

On the contrary, the burden of proof is on the person adding a statement, see policy: "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation."
"Once we admit that it did exist in 1612 the grounds for dismissing the rest of the evidence as a Burgundian Cross of St Andrew becomes very weak." The TCD seal has a red saltire, sure - but is this the same flag - a 'flag of Ireland' - or just a red saltire? No one knows. If the Dublin writers in 1783 didn't link the two (remember, TCD was important institution to them) then surely it's a leap for us, over two centuries later, to say that the link is obvious.
I've redone the intro, which not not NPOV on the matter. I hope it's better. --sony-youthpléigh 19:44, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I was speaking of logic not of the editorial rules of Wikipedia. On the one hand we have the use of a flag matching the exact description of the St Patrick’s Cross on the arms of Trinity College Dublin in 1612 with the probability that it dates to the foundation of the College in 1592 and that this flag was already a recognisable symbol at that time (else it would not have been incorporated into the arms). On these arms it is placed under a recognised symbol of Ireland and juxtaposed to a St George’s Cross under a recognised symbol of England. We have the complete absence of any alternative explanation for the meaning of this flag or of any evidence with which to construct any alternative explanation (it cannot be a Burgundian symbol in the context). We have the appearance of the same flag on the arms of Cork and Enniskillen, again without alternative explanation. We have a reference to the naval use of the ‘fflagg of St Patericke’ as the Flag of Ireland in "The Voyage to Cadiz in 1625" by John Glanville. We have a contemporary illustrated map of the siege of Duncannon Fort in County Wexford ( 1645) showing Irish Catholic forces marching behind a Red and White Saltire. We have ‘Neptune Francois’ published in the Netherlands in 1693, illustrating the flags of Europe which shows the ‘Ierse Irlandois’ as a red saltire on a white background and we have ‘De Doorliughtige Weerld’ (1700) which say the flag of Ireland is a ‘white flag with a red St Andrew’s Cross’. We have the use of this design as if it were an historic symbol of Ireland and St Patrick in 1783 itself. In only one of these cases(1645) is the Burgundian explanation even remotely plausible and in the context of the other cases this plausibility melts away entirely. On the other hand we have two letters to a newspaper in 1783 and one other protest. These indeed require some explanation but they are far outweighed by the rest of the evidence. It is quite possible that the red saltire was rare and unrecognised in Dublin in 1783 and/or that those who did recognise it didn’t bother to say anything. It could be that it was seen as a Catholic symbol (a la 1645) and the ascendency did not like its use in an official capacity. It has certainly been used in Roman Catholic ecclesiastical architecture as a symbol of St Patrick after 1800. There could be many explanations, but in the face of eight counter citations (nine if the Fitzgerald arms are supposed to themselves symbolise the family's Irish connections) the burden of proof is squarely on those who would seek to deny the existence of the St Patrick’s Cross before 1783. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.173.4.86 (talk) 16:07, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not interested in arguing. Just have a read through policy on the use of sources and what is meant by keeping a neutral point of view on Wikipedia. There are two view (three if you include the Fitzgerald), all three need equal representation and we are not here to judge one way or the other. Let the facts speak for themselves and let the reader decide. sony-youthpléigh 16:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)