3 ms·

The Ulster Banner shown in the article is literally the flag of England (red cross) with a British royal crown and an Irish symbol (the Red Hand) that, while on

The Ulster Banner shown in the article is literally the flag of England (red cross) with a British royal crown and an Irish symbol (the Red Hand) that, while once neutral, has been co-opted by many violent loyalist groups. Trying to declare this as an official symbol of the entire... place would go down about as well as the US changing its flag to a Republican elephant wearing a MAGA baseball cap.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jan_Inkepa 4y ago
Then there're hard-to-explain-to-outsider mashups like this: https://unionjackshop.com/product/israel-ulster-flag/ https://unionjackshop.com/product/israel-ulster-flag/ The people of Northern Ireland cannot be said to be lacking a rich symbolic language...
- ben_w 4y ago
  Uh huh. Well, I certainly count as an outsider, even if theoretically sharing a nationality (British), because that has no obvious connection to me.
  - hnbad 4y ago
    As far as I can gather, some people supporting reunification have adopted the Palestinian flag because they see Palestinians as "brothers in spirit" (i.e. seeing themselves as victims of an occupying government seeking to erase their national and cultural identity while they struggle for liberation, or something to that effect). And through a very obvious but also very weird leap of logic, some of those opposing them have adopted the flag of Israel as a symbol of their opposition. And from that point on they probably just went wild and added other unionist symbols to the flag because running around with regular Israeli flags felt weird or something. EDIT: Someone linked a YouTube clip of a comedia making light of the flag situation that has apparently escalated to the point of the Italian flag being used as a symbol of resistance because someone saw an Italian flag in a Northern Irish school and got upset mistaking it for the Irish one. That's probably the biggest parallel to Palestine I can find given that flag drama in Palestine has escalated to the point where watermelons have become a resistance symbol because of the similarity of its colors to the Palestinian flag, which is banned by Israeli police.
    - jan_Inkepa 4y ago
      >EDIT: Someone linked a YouTube clip of a comedia making light of the flag situation that has apparently escalated to the point of the Italian flag being used as a symbol of resistance because someone saw an Italian flag in a Northern Irish school and got upset mistaking it for the Irish one. I can't find any examples of the Italian flag being used as a resistance symbol in Norn, just the initial Willie Fraser incident - if you can share an example I'd like to see it though! (Because it's v. funny if true)
- smcl 4y ago
  This one isn't too hard to explain, I think. The red Lion Rampant either side of the red hand and star of david suggests that this is likely a flag intended for supporters of Rangers FC [0] - a football club in Glasgow, Scotland. They will take the opposite sides of any conflict from their rivals, Celtic, who have generally shown solidarity with Palestians: https://www.timesofisrael.com/scotlands-celtic-soccer-team-removes-palestinian-flags-displayed-by-fans/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/scotlands-celtic-soccer-team-r... The Northern Ireland connection comes from Rangers being supported by the Protestant population in Scotland/NI, and Celtic being supported by the Catholic population of Scotland/NI[1]. There's a big game on tonight - the Europa League final where Rangers are taking on Eintracht Frankfurt. Keep an eye out for some interesting flags and post-match violence :( [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangers_F.C.#/media/File:Rangers_FC.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangers_F.C.#/media/File:Range... [1] - Except if you're in Edinburgh where it's less pronounced but still sort of present (Protestant=Hearts/Catholic=Hibs) or if you consider this sectarian feuding to be a stain on the sport and a national disgrace :)
  - basisword 4y ago
    To explain further the reason the Celtic football team supports Palestine is because the nationalist community in general supports Palestine. Mainly owing to the fact that they see broad similarities between NI and Israel/Palestine. Israel and Palestine flags can be seen around NI. Unionists supporting Israel doesn’t have much basis other than “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” unless there’s some deeper meaning I’m not aware of.
    - smcl 4y ago
      That's the historic reason, it makes sense, sounds good and fans on each side will happily justify their respective positions. But for the Old Firm I think the more important thing is to both be in opposition to each other. Consider an alternate history where the British Mandate of Palestine being turned into Israel somehow caused Rangers to immediately declare solidarity with the people of Palestine. I don't think this would be an issue both sides of the Old Firm would be happy to share and come together on, and I can almost guarantee we'd instead be seeing Israeli flags proudly being flown at Parkhead on match day. Sorry I have a fairly cynical view on this and having known and dealt with many fans of either side I have a fairly good idea what motivates them, and it always seemed to boil down to conflict above all else. Edit: Just realised that my views may be coloured by being outside of the country for a decade, it could be that I only remember the worst encounters or conversations or that things are better now, or that I’m just sour every team I wanted to do well this year didn’t (Aberdeen were woeful, Montrose and Arbroath didn’t get promoted) :-)
anonymousDan 4y ago
First time I've heard of the Red Hand being viewed negatively by the nationalist community. Given its place in ancient Irish mythology that surprises me. Perhaps in the North it is true but I certainly don't think it's viewed that way in Ireland. Although I know the Irish flag (green/white/orange) is viewed quite negatively by the unionist community even though ironically it is supposed to symbolize peace (white) between the nationalist (green) and unionist (orange - a la William of Orange) communities.
- jan_Inkepa 4y ago
  I grew up in the republic of Ireland and only associated the Red hand with unionism. ( I can find an article from 1999 talking about Sinn Fein complaining about the Red Hand in the north - https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/the-red-hand-of-ulster-1.264922 https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/the-red-hand-of-ulster-1.... ). Don't know about nowadays though. > is viewed quite negatively by the unionist community even though ironically it is supposed to symbolize peace (white) between the nationalist (green) and unionist (orange - a la William of Orange) communities. In my (Catholic) school down the country we were (IIRC) never taught that the third colour was orange, but gold. Wikipedia gives two reasons for this, IIRC - one that it's easier to rhyme and the other being that people don't want to acknowledge the meaning/have to think about unionists when talking about the flag. (I don't remember learning the meaning of the flag either, but maybe it was covered once).
- basisword 4y ago
  The red hand appears on the UVF flag I believe which would explain the negative view regardless of the mythology/history behind the symbol itself.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jan_Inkepa 4y ago

Then there're hard-to-explain-to-outsider mashups like this: https://unionjackshop.com/product/israel-ulster-flag/ https://unionjackshop.com/product/israel-ulster-flag/ The people of Northern Ireland cannot be said to be lacking a rich symbolic language...

ben_w 4y ago
Uh huh. Well, I certainly count as an outsider, even if theoretically sharing a nationality (British), because that has no obvious connection to me.
- hnbad 4y ago
  As far as I can gather, some people supporting reunification have adopted the Palestinian flag because they see Palestinians as "brothers in spirit" (i.e. seeing themselves as victims of an occupying government seeking to erase their national and cultural identity while they struggle for liberation, or something to that effect). And through a very obvious but also very weird leap of logic, some of those opposing them have adopted the flag of Israel as a symbol of their opposition. And from that point on they probably just went wild and added other unionist symbols to the flag because running around with regular Israeli flags felt weird or something. EDIT: Someone linked a YouTube clip of a comedia making light of the flag situation that has apparently escalated to the point of the Italian flag being used as a symbol of resistance because someone saw an Italian flag in a Northern Irish school and got upset mistaking it for the Irish one. That's probably the biggest parallel to Palestine I can find given that flag drama in Palestine has escalated to the point where watermelons have become a resistance symbol because of the similarity of its colors to the Palestinian flag, which is banned by Israeli police.
  - jan_Inkepa 4y ago
    >EDIT: Someone linked a YouTube clip of a comedia making light of the flag situation that has apparently escalated to the point of the Italian flag being used as a symbol of resistance because someone saw an Italian flag in a Northern Irish school and got upset mistaking it for the Irish one. I can't find any examples of the Italian flag being used as a resistance symbol in Norn, just the initial Willie Fraser incident - if you can share an example I'd like to see it though! (Because it's v. funny if true)
smcl 4y ago
This one isn't too hard to explain, I think. The red Lion Rampant either side of the red hand and star of david suggests that this is likely a flag intended for supporters of Rangers FC [0] - a football club in Glasgow, Scotland. They will take the opposite sides of any conflict from their rivals, Celtic, who have generally shown solidarity with Palestians: https://www.timesofisrael.com/scotlands-celtic-soccer-team-removes-palestinian-flags-displayed-by-fans/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/scotlands-celtic-soccer-team-r... The Northern Ireland connection comes from Rangers being supported by the Protestant population in Scotland/NI, and Celtic being supported by the Catholic population of Scotland/NI[1]. There's a big game on tonight - the Europa League final where Rangers are taking on Eintracht Frankfurt. Keep an eye out for some interesting flags and post-match violence :( [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangers_F.C.#/media/File:Rangers_FC.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangers_F.C.#/media/File:Range... [1] - Except if you're in Edinburgh where it's less pronounced but still sort of present (Protestant=Hearts/Catholic=Hibs) or if you consider this sectarian feuding to be a stain on the sport and a national disgrace :)
- basisword 4y ago
  To explain further the reason the Celtic football team supports Palestine is because the nationalist community in general supports Palestine. Mainly owing to the fact that they see broad similarities between NI and Israel/Palestine. Israel and Palestine flags can be seen around NI. Unionists supporting Israel doesn’t have much basis other than “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” unless there’s some deeper meaning I’m not aware of.
  - smcl 4y ago
    That's the historic reason, it makes sense, sounds good and fans on each side will happily justify their respective positions. But for the Old Firm I think the more important thing is to both be in opposition to each other. Consider an alternate history where the British Mandate of Palestine being turned into Israel somehow caused Rangers to immediately declare solidarity with the people of Palestine. I don't think this would be an issue both sides of the Old Firm would be happy to share and come together on, and I can almost guarantee we'd instead be seeing Israeli flags proudly being flown at Parkhead on match day. Sorry I have a fairly cynical view on this and having known and dealt with many fans of either side I have a fairly good idea what motivates them, and it always seemed to boil down to conflict above all else. Edit: Just realised that my views may be coloured by being outside of the country for a decade, it could be that I only remember the worst encounters or conversations or that things are better now, or that I’m just sour every team I wanted to do well this year didn’t (Aberdeen were woeful, Montrose and Arbroath didn’t get promoted) :-)

anonymousDan 4y ago

First time I've heard of the Red Hand being viewed negatively by the nationalist community. Given its place in ancient Irish mythology that surprises me. Perhaps in the North it is true but I certainly don't think it's viewed that way in Ireland. Although I know the Irish flag (green/white/orange) is viewed quite negatively by the unionist community even though ironically it is supposed to symbolize peace (white) between the nationalist (green) and unionist (orange - a la William of Orange) communities.

jan_Inkepa 4y ago
I grew up in the republic of Ireland and only associated the Red hand with unionism. ( I can find an article from 1999 talking about Sinn Fein complaining about the Red Hand in the north - https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/the-red-hand-of-ulster-1.264922 https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/the-red-hand-of-ulster-1.... ). Don't know about nowadays though. > is viewed quite negatively by the unionist community even though ironically it is supposed to symbolize peace (white) between the nationalist (green) and unionist (orange - a la William of Orange) communities. In my (Catholic) school down the country we were (IIRC) never taught that the third colour was orange, but gold. Wikipedia gives two reasons for this, IIRC - one that it's easier to rhyme and the other being that people don't want to acknowledge the meaning/have to think about unionists when talking about the flag. (I don't remember learning the meaning of the flag either, but maybe it was covered once).
basisword 4y ago
The red hand appears on the UVF flag I believe which would explain the negative view regardless of the mythology/history behind the symbol itself.