Madam, - Once more the origin of the Irish Tricolour is being debated in your columns. The argument can be settled as the newspapers of the period are in the National Library.
During the revolution in France in 1848, representatives of the Irish Confederation travelled to Paris, where they met Alphonse de Lamartine, a leading member of the new Republic. The Irish delegation consisted of Meagher, Smith O'Brien and Edward Hollywood.
They brought the new tricolour flag back with them, and it was presented at a gathering in the Music Hall in Dublin's Abbey Street on April 15th.
Mitchel's weekly paper, The United Irishman, reported Meagher's speech:
"From Paris, the gay and gallant city of the tricolour and the barricade, this flag has been proudly borne. I present it to my native land. The white in the centre 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 hands of the Irish Catholic may be grasped in generous and heroic brotherhood. If this flag is destined to fan the flames of war let England behold once more upon that white centre, the Red Hand that struck her down from the hills of Ulster. And I trust that Heaven may bless the vengeance it is sure to kindle."
The white in the centre did not represent peace, but revolutionary Jacobinism, as in France. Peace in Ireland is precious, but we do not need to distort history in the cause. - Yours, etc,
SEAN REDMOND, Lindsay Road, Dublin.
Madam, - Conor Grehan deserves thanks for highlighting as specious the notion of hope associated with the popular meaning of the national flag - peace between Orange and Green (June 2nd). But rather than change to a new flag, as he suggests, it would be more appropriate (especially since the tricolour is a legacy of the 1916 Rising), if the Government were persuaded to arrange for us to be given an authoritative explanation of the flag's symbolism.
It could hold the key towards the fulfilment of the prophecy of Pearse in his address to his court martial - "If our deed has not been sufficient to win freedom, then our children will win it by a better deed". - Yours, etc,
JAMES McGEEVER, Dublin Road, Kingscourt, Co Cavan.