Table Of ContentOur Own Devices
National Symbols and Political Conflict in
Twentieth-Century Ireland
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Title: Our Oown CdeviSces oat
Class:
National Symbéts and Pekincal Conflict in
Twentieth-Century Ireland
EWAN MORRIS
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IRISH ACADEMIC PRESS
DUBLIN * PORTLAND, OR
First published in 2005 by
IRISH ACADEMIC PRESS
44, Northumberland Road, Dublin 4, Ireland
and in the United States of America by
IRISH ACADEMIC PRESS
c/o ISBS, Suite 300, 920 NE 58th Avenue
Oregon 97212
Website: www.iap.ie
© Ewan Morris 2005
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
An entry for this title is available on application
ISBN 0-7165-2663-8 (cloth)
0-7165-3337-5 (paper)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
An entry for this title is available on application
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved
alone, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or
introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the
above publisher of this book.
Typeset by FiSH Books, London
Printed by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements vi
Vili
Foreword
Introduction
Symbols and nations
Symbols and solidarity
Symbols of state
Debates about national symbols
1 ‘The wolf-dog lying down and the harp without the crown’: —mB Oe NN R
Irish national symbols to 1922
Emblems of Ireland: origins and popularisation 11
National symbols, popular politics and Gaelic revivalism 16
Personifications of Ireland 20
Flags and anthems before 1916 26
1916 and after 29
Conclusion ae
2 From symbols of party to symbols of state: the flag and 38
anthem of the Irish Free State
38
Adoption of the Free State flag and anthem
41
Cumann na nGaedheal and the selection of the flag and anthem
44
National or party symbols?
51
Proposals to replace the flag and anthem
59
Religion and the flag and anthem
61
The flag and anthem in public life
68
Conclusion
3 ‘Silent ambassadors of national taste’: seals, stamps, 70
banknotes and coins of the Irish Free State
Rejection of established national emblems in the Irish Free State 71
73
State seals
Stamps 76
Legal tender notes 81
Selection of the coinage designs 85
The coinage debate Ol
A pagan coinage? 93
iv Our Own Devices
Other issues in the coinage debate oy
Silences and key concerns in the coinage debate 101
Conclusion 104
4 True to the red, white and blue: official symbols of 107
Northern Ireland
Ulster unionists and their symbols 108
Choosing symbols of Northern Ireland ore
The importance of the Union Jack to Ulster unionists 117
The Newry Town Hall flag incident 124
Conclusion 134
5 Disloyal displays?: minority national symbols in Northern 136
Ireland and the Irish Free State
The Irish tricolour and ‘The Soldier’s Song’ in Northern Ireland 137
Use of anthems and flags by nationalists in Northern Ireland 137
Restrictions on display of the tricolour before 1933 139
Background to the 1933 ‘ban’ on the tricolour 142
The 1933 regulation regarding the tricolour 144
Government policy towards ‘The Soldier’s Song’ 149
The Union Jack and ‘God Save the King’ in the Irish Free State 151
Nationalists and imperial symbols 151
Ex-unionist use of imperial symbols 153
The question of ex-unionist loyalty 156
Responses of the political parties to the use of imperial symbols 160
Conclusion 165
6 Pillarboxes and partition: symbols, sovereignty and 167
Irish unity
Official symbols in the other dominions 169
Symbols and dominion status in the Irish Free State 173
Unionists in Northern Ireland and the official symbols of the 179
Irish Free State
Nationalists in the Irish Free State and unionist concerns 183
Flags and all-Ireland sporting bodies 187
Conclusion 196
7 Symbols, conflict and conciliation: 1940 to 2000 198
Symbols in Eire/the Republic of Ireland 198
Symbols in Northem Ireland 201
Symbols and the search for peace in Northem Ireland since 1985 205
The Good Friday Agreement and beyond 20
Conclusion 217
Conclusion 218
Notes 226
Bibliography
281
Index 301
List of Illustrations
1. Grave of Stephen O’ Donohoe, Glasnevin cemetery
2. Cartoon of political candidate from Dublin Opinion, August 1923
. Lyrics of ‘The Soldier’s Song’ as originally published in Jrish
Oo
Freedom
. Great Seal of the Irish Free State
. Irish Free State stamps, 1922-1939
. 1928 £50 Irish Free State banknote, showing both sides
. Irish Free state coins
. Ulster Unionist Convention (1892) badge
. ‘Against Home Rule Hands Up!’ postcard
. Great Seal of Northern Ireland
. Northern Ireland coat of arms
. Longford war memorial unveiling with Union Jack
. Photo of green letter-box
. Loyalist and republican murals
. Crests of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the new Police Service of
Northern Ireland
. Flag cartoon by Martyn Turner
Acknowledgements
It is a great pleasure to be able at last to acknowledge all those who have
contributed to the writing and publication of this book —
At the University of Sydney, I received valuable support and guidance
from Tony Cahill, Oliver MacDonagh and Richard White. David Fitzpatrick
provided very useful advice at various points along the way, and was kind
enough to talk to me when I first conceived of the idea of doing research in
Irish history. Dan Collins and Michael Laffan also assisted me during my
research in Ireland, and Colm Gallagher generously shared his knowledge
of, and sources relating to, the 1928 coinage designs.
Thanks to the staffs of the National Archives of Ireland, the Military
Archives of Ireland, the University College Dublin Archives Department,
the Trinity College Library Manuscripts Department, the Public Record
Office of Northem Ireland, the National Library of Ireland, the University
College Dublin Library, Fisher Library at the University of Sydney, the
Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland in Belfast, and Niamh O’ Sullivan of the
Kilmainham Jail Museum, for their assistance.
I also wish to thank the following individuals and institutions for per-
mission to use quotations or to reproduce images in this book: Director of
the National Archives of Ireland and the Deputy Keeper of Records of the
Public Record Office of Northern Ireland for permission to quote from
documents in their respective collections; David Higham Associates for
permission to quote from ‘Autumn Journal’ by Louis MacNeice; A.P.
Watt Ltd on behalf of Michael B. Yeats for permission to quote from “The
Man and the Echo’ and ‘September 1913’ by W.B. Yeats: the Department
of the Taoiseach for permission to reproduce the Great Seal of the Irish
Free State; An Post for permission to reproduce the Irish Free State
stamps; the Central Bank of Ireland for permission to reproduce the Irish
Free State banknotes; the Department of Finance for permission to repro-
duce the Irish Free State coins; Bill Rolston for permission to reproduce
his photographs of wall murals; the Police Service of Northem Ireland for
permission to reproduce the crests of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and
the Police Service of Northem Ireland; and Martyn Tumer for permission
to reproduce his cartoon.
Acknowledgements vil
I am eternally grateful to Keith Jeffery for recommending this book for
publication, and for his invaluable help and encouragement over a number
of years. At Irish Academic Press, Linda Longmore initially took the book
on. More recently Jonathan Manley showed great patience in dealing with
my many queries, Rachel Milotte kindly obtained copies of illustrations,
and Lisa Hyde has overseen the book during the final stretch, helping to
nudge it over the finish line. Many thanks to the whole IAP team.
Many friends have supported me and helped to keep me sane through
the long process of working on this book. In particular, Melissa Harper,
Kate Jackson, Hsu-Ming Teo and Stuart Ward have been there from the
start of this project, or near enough to the start, and I have benefited huge-
ly from their friendship, support and suggestions. I am indebted to them,
and to all my other friends who have continued to ask about the book even
when I was heartily sick of it.
Finally, Mum, Dad and Meredith have kept me going with their love
and support, and I am grateful to them beyond measure. I dedicate this
book to the newest member of our family, my niece Abigail, and hope that
she will not respond by asking for ‘More!’
Go raibh mile maith agaibh go léir
Nga mihi nui ki a koutou katoa
Good on youse all!
Ewan Morris
June 2004
Foreword
In the early days of the Northern Ireland ‘peace process’, when the issue of
the IRA decommissioning of arms was an especially fraught topic, the
consistently stimulating Derry commentator Eamon McCann remarked in a
radio interview that the Provos would not release even so much as ‘a
smidgeen of Semtex’. Those of us who regarded the whole exercise as
merely symbolic were greatly dismayed by this assertion. All PIRA needed
to do, we thought, was give up a few weeping bars of elderly explosive, and
a rusty Thompson machine-gun or two. But, as we soon came to appreciate,
McCann was absolutely right and no movement was possible precisely
because any surrender of arms, however small, would be a symbolic gesture,
and therefore pregnant with political meaning. Quoting Adolf Hitler, no less,
who had a shrewd appreciation of national symbolism, Ewan Morris
reminds us that there are ‘very important matters in these apparent trifles’.
This book engrossingly explores the ‘branding’ of the two post-partition
Irish states. Independent Ireland was, naturally, quicker off the mark than the
North. By April 1922 the red British pillar boxes, royal cipher and all, were
being painted green, a cheerfully pragmatic demonstration of the regime
change. The green, white and orange tricolour was adopted from the start,
despite republican objections that the Free State government had no right to
sully the pure republican symbolism of a flag which had, apparently, flown
over the GPO in 1916. But there was another Irish flag, a green standard,
bearing the words ‘Irish republic’ in gold, which had certainly flown over the
GPO and had been seized as a battle trophy by the British. In 1966, as a
gesture of reconciliation, it was decided to give this flag back. A curator at
the Imperial War Museum was sent to get the ‘Irish flag’ out of the safe
where it had lain for half a century (it having been thought far too provoca-
tive to put it on display). But there was consternation when a tricolour was
presented to the Irish ambassador, for he was expecting the green one, and
the poor curator had to rush back and find the correct flag. Thus it was that a
well-intentioned symbolic gesture, itself involving a sacred national symbol,
nearly turned into a very real diplomatic incident. Tread softly, one
supposes, for you may tread on our symbols.
Ewan Morris tells the story of the Irish, and Northern Irish, flags, seals,
stamps and songs, and tells it very well. From the wolfhounds and round
towers of the nineteenth century to the re-badging of the Northern Ireland
police in the late twentieth century, he deftly unpicks the sometimes very
passionate debates which accompanied the adoption (or not) of precious
party symbols. By dispassionately illuminating this important topic, Ewan
Morris, himself a New Zealander, has done us Irish a great service.
Keith Jeffery
University of Ulster at Jordanstown
September 2004
