AN BRATACH NÁISIÚNTA

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Doing the right thing by the national flag is no small thing, though there is clearly less respect around now than there used to be.

There are no legal restraints on the use of the flag, but the Taoiseach's Department has set out a series of guidelines which it strongly recommends be followed if the flag is to get its due.

The illustration above from the guidelines shows how to drape the flag over a coffin. However, without the help of the text it is not at all clear. The green is to go over the head of the coffin (and presumably the corpse) and the orange at the other end.

The specific colours of the flag are set out in detail. It is green (pms 347), white and orange (pms 151). None of this gold stuff, though there is a lot of that around too.

The flag should normally be taken down at sunset. When I worked in a government department on the top floor, a soldier would come through at sunset to take down the flag. Right order.

If it is to be flown beyond sunset it should be specifically illuminated, preferably by a spotlight, as set out in the guideline above.

Sad then to see Sinn Féin fly the flag without illumination some three quarters of an hour after sunset. I understand that there is a spotlight option here but they just haven't bothered to turn it on. Didn't stop them turning on the main lights for the ad for the show though.

Clearly the flag should not be left up when it is worn to flithers.

The photo above was taken in Limerick a few years ago and it's not like the pub was out of business. You'd also wonder if that had ever been orange.

This one was definitely orange but half of that end of it has flithered away. And where do you think this might be? Well, it's opposite the GPO on O'Connell Street in Dublin city centre. Pretty insulting that and in the 1916 centenary year to boot.

But the message here is loud and clear. This is flying over Clerys where company manipulations in the middle of the night left the staff on the street and the new owners' pockets overflowing. There could be no better symbol of runaway capitalism cocking a snook at the nation than the national flag in flithers over this iconic building and just across the street from the GPO.

If you have any interest in further reading on how to respect the flag, it's all in here.

Eternal Vigilance

As everyone (ie the few) who reads my blog knows, I am obsessed with the upside down flying of flags, and in particular the EU flag.

I wish people would stop feeding my obsession.

The above photo of the EU flag flying upside down outside the European Parliament was carried without comment in yesterday's online edition of the Irish Independent.

Of the European institutions themselves, that now makes two, the European Commission and the European Parliament, not to mention the French and Hungarian embassies in Dublin and a few others like Sinn Féin and TG4.

Or do I smell Photoshop here and does it matter?

Eternal vigilance is the price of rightwayupness.

New Head

I was passing Fairview Park some time ago when I saw a man with no head. A statue in the park had been decapitated, or had it just fallen off? I decided to investigate.


The remaining body belonged to Seán Russell, a controversial figure in early 20th century Ireland. Surely one of the most hardline republicans of his age. He fought in the war of independence and the civil war and became chief of staff of the IRA in the 1930s, initiated the UK bombing campaign at that time, collaborated with Nazi Germany, and died in a Nazi submarine while on a subersive mission to Ireland with Frank Ryan, in 1940.


I was staggered. This guy was definitely not on my school history curriculum.

The statue was erected in 1951, in Fairview Park, near to where Russell was born. Mary Lou McDonald, Euro MEP and the quintessence of Sinn Féin sex-appeal, spoke at the monument in 2003. The following year, the statue was decapitated by an alleged anti-fascist group, and, for the following four years, it led a headless existence.

The National Graves Association had vowed to replace the statue with a harder-to-decapitate bronze version. And there the matter rested.

I was passing Fairview Park the other day and, lo and behold, I noticed the return of the head.


True to their word, the Association had replaced not only the head but the whole body as well, and in the promised anti-fascist-resistant bronze.

The jacket has been replaced by a long-coat and the copy of An Phoblacht (which surely it must have been) has been replaced by an irregular hat. I can't comment on the facial expression as I never saw the original.

This version of the statue is, however, reminiscent of that of Thomas Davis in College Green. Stubbornly clunky and aesthetically way ahead of its predecessor.


You can read a potted version of Seán Russell's life here. The Wiki version is now out of date, so, if there is anyone out there with experience of updating Wiki, they might do so on the basis of this post.

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Update 5/1/2011

Special Branch Report of the inauguration of the original statue. From site of Official Sinn Féin and brought to my attention by that fantastic Dublin blog Come Here to Me.