Irish flag

Aug. 30th, 2017 08:28 am
ghoti_mhic_uait: (Default)
[personal profile] ghoti_mhic_uait
Yesterday, Colin and I watched Michael Collins, which is a film about the war of independence leading up to the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922, and in particular, the revolutionary Michael Collins who lead the guerilla army. I was surprised to see them using the tricolour, given its symbolism of peace; sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs, but the Irish flag still in use today is a tricolour green - white - orange which, in the words of the Irish government "green represents the older Gaelic tradition while the orange represents the supporters of William of Orange. The white in the centre signifies a lasting truce between the 'Orange' and the 'Green'."

I'd always assumed it was adopted by the free state in 1922, with people fed up of fighting, or even the Irish republic in 1937. No. It was first used as a symbol in 1830, and used extensively until 1848, at which point it fell out of favour somewhat as a symbol, and was one of many, until it was adopted during the Easter rising in 1916. I'd kind of assumed it took something like the Croke park massacre (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1920)) to make people long for peace, but no, basically, that's always been part of the Irish call for independence.

Anyway, I basically didn't learn anything about the Irish war of independence before, so generally, very interesting, and I'm told it's more or less historically accurate (although the bit where the directors decided to show tanks shooting at children because it was less scary than what really happened is a bit grim, but, British empire, what do you expect?) so if that sounds like the sort of thing you might be interested by, and you can cope with ALan Rickman's 'Oirish' accent, might be worth a try?

Rest of life round up:
Reading: still Brothers Karamazov
Watching: Michael Collins
Eating: spaghetti with broccoli, smoked salmon and a creme fraiche sauce, and Judith learnt that she likes smoked salmon!
Playing: Paku paku, but I got a present of Founding Fathers which is a US political history game I'm super excited about

Date: 2017-08-30 07:59 am (UTC)
hooloovoo_42: (Default)
From: [personal profile] hooloovoo_42
I have a (VHS) copy, but I can't remember if I've ever actually seen it. It's possible I saw it when it first came out, but I have no recollection other than clips on Barry Norman's show.


ghoti_mhic_uait: (Default)

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