Bloody Oath – Frank McNally on the red-handed tricolour

It is widely acknowledged that Thomas Francis Meagher first introduced the green, white, and orange tricolour to Ireland in 1848, having brought one home from France, where he had been presented with it by revolutionary sympathisers.

His explanation of the symbolism at a public rally has also been much quoted down the decades and was again during the flag’s 175th anniversary celebrations earlier this year.

“The white in the centre signifies a lasting truce between the ‘Orange’ and the ‘Green’,” he said, “and I trust that beneath its folds the hands of the Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants may be clasped in heroic brotherhood.”

But I’m indebted to Trinity College historian Sylvie Kleinman, via her lecture in Ballina last weekend, for a lesser-known part of his speech – one that suggested a possible alternative design from the tricolour, depending on circumstances.

“The last of the great classical physicists” – Brian Maye on William Thomson, Lord Kelvin

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A city where peace comes dropping slow – Frank McNally on a visit to The Hague

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Clues of destiny – Alison Healy on the Crossword Panic of 1944

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Animal cracker – Frank McNally on “Humanity Dick” Martin and 200 years of the SPCA

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After the bit about brotherhood, Meagher added: “If this flag be destined to fan the flames of war, let England behold once more, upon the white centre, the Red Hand that struck her down from the hills of Ulster.”

This was greeted with “loud and continuing cheering” according to contemporary newspapers. But as Sylvie pointed out, it’s usually omitted from the quotation now.

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Might the red-handed tricolour be a candidate for the compromise flag of a peacefully united Ireland? No, probably not. Perhaps the bellicose undertones of Meagher’s addendum would argue against it. And even if there was general agreement on the principle, Ireland being Ireland, opinion would probably split on whether the hand should be a right one or a left.

The Red Hand of Ulster is typically “dexter”, to use the heraldic term, but can also be “sinister” on occasion. And for at least some people in the South, including those who hate the Tyrone football team, both may look equally sinister, in the looser modern sense of that word.

Fans of the TV series Peaky Blinders would insist on the dexter version, if only because of Nick Cave’s theme song of that title, about a mysterious but powerful stranger on horseback: “You’re one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan/Designed and directed by his red right hand.”

Cave was in turn channeling Milton, from Paradise Lost: “What if the breath that kindled those grim fires/Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage,/And plunge us in the flames, or from above/Should intermittent vengeance arm again/His red right hand to plague us.”

But long before Milton, the Red Hand of Ulster (right or left) was known and feared, thanks to the O’Neill clan, who used it as their corporate logo.

Hence an Elizabethan English commentator who wrote: “The Ancient Red Hand of Ulster, the bloody Red Hand, a terrible cognizance! And in allusion to that terrible cognizance – the battle cry of Lamh Dearg abu!”

Bloody or not, the symbol seems to be equally popular on both sides of the north’s political divide, as few things are. Even so, its sanguinary history probably disqualifies it from inclusion in any new national flag for times of peace.

My vote would be for the old United Irishmen standard, perhaps updated, with an orangey-gold harp on a green background.

This would also preclude the need for a whiteboard in the middle, which however well-meant on the tricolour, has long invited desecration by the written additions of commercial and political propagandists.

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On a lighter note, the aforementioned Sylvie also reminded me in passing of a column I wrote here a while back about the location of James Joyce’s Ivy Day in the Committee Room.

The story describes a municipal election day, circa 1904, when the down-at-heel political canvassers are still adjusting to life after Charles Stewart Parnell. But as the column said, the same address in Wicklow Street is now home to the Secret Book and Record Store.

And in a parable on the new Ireland, it added that the building also these days includes a “Beauty and Brow Bar”, where services range from basic manicures to Brazilian waxes. On which note, I quoted Yeats: “All changed, changed utterly”.

Well, it turns out that Sylvie is an occasional customer there. And on a recent visit, the beautician – who is originally from Kathmandu – had a copy of the piece brought to her attention by other customers.

She was pleased with the publicity, apparently, but puzzled by the poetic reference, until Sylvie completed the quotation.

On which note, I now feel it necessary to clarify that there is nothing terrible about the beauty available in the salon. On the contrary, it comes with glowing references from Irish Times readers – by definition people of good taste.

I wish the lady from Kathmandu continued success in Ireland. She is, in a way, living proof of Parnell’s dictum that “no man has a right to fix the boundary of the march of a nation.” And on a final note, for any red-handed Ulster people reading this, I highly recommend the manicures.