Flag of Ireland

Flag origins

Ireland’s flag has green-white-orange vertical bands from the hoist. Green represents mainly nationalist and Catholic traditions, orange mainly Protestant and particularly Orange traditions, and white peace and reconciliation between them. The government describes the whole as an aspiration to inclusion and unity among different traditions. In 1848, Thomas Francis Meagher explained the white as a lasting truce between orange and green.

Flag story

The Irish tricolour was influenced by France’s revolutionary tricolour, as the presidency confirms. Meagher was inspired by revolutionary ideas in the European upheavals of 1848. It was first flown at Waterford on March 7, 1848, but did not immediately become the national flag. Its display above Dublin’s General Post Office during the Easter Rising of 1916 established it rapidly as an independence symbol. It became the Irish Free State’s flag in 1922 and was confirmed in the 1937 Constitution. Côte d’Ivoire reverses its colors: Ireland is green-white-orange; Côte d’Ivoire orange-white-green.

Editorial notes and references

Edited by ABELHA WORKS. The English text translates the administrator-edited Japanese description. Legends should be distinguished from documented history. General reference links do not substantiate every statement in the text.

• Ireland — general information on Wikipedia
• Japan MOFA: countries and regions (Japanese)

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