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Summoning her children to which flag?

Published in Issue 1 (January/February 2017), Letters, Volume 25

Sir,—Emily Cullen’s interesting article (HI 24.6, Nov./Dec. 2016) brings three things to mind. Readers may not be aware that the green flag with the gold harp is in continuous use today. It is the ‘jack’ flown by Irish naval ships when moored or at anchor, or on special occasions under way when ‘dressed overall’.

At the height of the Repeal Movement in the early 1840s it was flown by some Irish-owned merchant vessels, and it was the object of British naval vessels on the Irish station to remove them. An incident occurred on 8 April 1844 in Cork harbour, where the steamer Mermaid, carrying the lord mayor and corporation of Waterford and a group of supporters on the way to Cork for a meeting with Daniel O’Connell, passed naval ships anchored in the harbour. The steamer was flying ‘a green flag’ as an ensign (flown at the stern and indicating the nationality of the vessel), as well as a large green flag with ‘Repeal’ written on it at the masthead. She had passed HMS Volage, the flagship of Admiral Bowles, anchored off Cove, before it was realised that she was flying the illegal ensign. The Mermaid fired guns and was cheered by a crowd ashore, which was reciprocated from the ship. However, the next day she passed outward again and the navy was ready for her. She was not flying the green flag as an ensign this time; she had the correct ‘red ensign’, but had another type of green flag at the masthead. She was boarded, and in spite of protests that this flag was the arms of the City of Waterford it was hauled down and confiscated. The flag remained in the naval stores in Haulbowline and was for several years the subject of much correspondence between the mayor’s office and the admiral at Cove for its return. I believe it was returned but would be interested to know whether it is still in existence.

In 1941 the newly formed Irish Shipping Ltd was acquiring ships wherever it could. One was a Panamanian ship purchased in the United States, and among the equipment ordered from a local chandler was an Irish flag. A green flag with a gold harp was provided, and this was the ensign the ship wore on her first arrival in Dublin on 26 December 1941 as the Irish Plane.—Yours etc.,

DAIRE BRUNICARDI

On this Day

April 25

1922 Commandant O’Neill, 3rd Cork Brigade IRA, was shot dead at the home of a Protestant family in Bandon, Co. Cork. In a series of unattributed reprisals, thirteen Protestant civilians were shot dead in the surrounding area over the following four days.
1920 RIC Sergeant Cornelius Crean, brother of the explorer Tom Crean, was killed by the IRA in an ambush near Upton, Co. Cork.
1870 Daniel Maclise (64), history and portrait painter who worked for most of his life in London, died.
1719 The life and strange adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe was published.
1819 Vere Foster, philanthropist and educationist, born in Copenhagen, where his Irish-born father was British minister.
1987 Lord Justice Gibson and his wife were killed by an IRA bomb as they crossed the border south of Newry, Co. Down.
1917 Ella Fitzgerald, jazz singer, born in Newport News, Virginia.
1922 Commandant O’Neill of the third Cork Brigade IRA was shot dead at the home of a Protestant family in Bandon, Co. Cork. In a series of unattributed reprisals, thirteen Protestant civilians were shot dead in the surrounding area between 26 and 29 April.
1915 During the First World War, Allied troops landed on Turkey’s Gallipoli Peninsula. The disastrous Gallipoli campaign, ending in January 1916, cost 46,000 Allied lives, including over 2,295 Irishmen.

Summoning her children to which flag?

Personal Histories

On this Day

April 25