Our Irish Flag - some basic facts!

The Irish tricolour - Our national flag

It amazes me how little we know about our national flag.

Some facts about our national flag:

  • Our flag is a tricolour of green, white and orange
  • It’s twice as wide as it is high
  • The three colours are of equal size and the green goes next to the flagstaff
  • The flag was first introduced by Thomas Francis Meagher in 1848
  • He based it on the French tricolour
  • The green colour stands for the older Gaelic tradition and the orange stands for the supporters of William of Orange
  • The white in the centre stands for a lasting truce between the ‘Orange’ and the ‘Green’
  • It was raised above the General Post Office in Dublin during the Easter Rising of 1916
  • The tricolour became our national flag after the Rising
  • It is now enshrined in the Constitution of Ireland

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