The star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1908-1909, 1908-03-17
BACK TO
TIME Of The 3
GOLDEN CROWNS
Story of the Blue Banner Forced
on the Unwilling Sons
of Ireland.
GREEN FLAG WITH THE :
HARP WAS EVER LOVED
Affection for 1t Has Endured in
CeIts' Hearts Since Time
of Asiatic INVASION.

Several hundred years ago-about the
time Columbus set sail on his voyage
across the then unknown Atlantic
ireland was represented in the assem-
bly, of nations by a blue flag, bearing
three golden crowns.
The blue flag was not the choice of
the hardy race which peopled the
Emerald Isle. Long before that the
green flag had been the emblem Of the
~forefathers of the present Irish-Ameri-
can, and the harp that sounded through
Tara's halls had been placed on the
banner.
The blue banner with three golden
crowns was forced upon the Irish
people by King Edward w. of Eng
land. It's life was short, measured by
the life of nations. and 1t was soon re-
placed by the field of green. upon
which again was emblazoned the harp
famous in Irish legend and song.
When England first looked covetously
upon the island across. the western
channel, in the latter part of the
twelfth century, Ireland was peopled
with hardy clans, each of which was a
little nation in itself, with its own dis
t~inctive flag. These flags were all green,
and more than half of them bore the
harp.
Long before the advent of Christ, a
powerful expedition of Miletians, from
the City of Miletus, Asia Minor, con-
quered the natives of Ireland, subju-
gated and finally exterminated them.
The Miletians brought over the banner
of green from which the present Irish
standard sprung. The Miletians brought
with them the science of letters n
the elements of civilization, and when
they, in turn, fell a prey to h Celts
centuries afterward. the victorious le-
gions, charmed by the smiling country
with it's fields of velvety green, adopted
the emblem of the vanquished.
The kings and princes who warred
among themselves preserved the green.
But in 1912 when the long conflict be-
tween England and Ireland finally
ceased, King Edward the Fourth ap-
pointed a commission to learn the arms
of the country. The commission reached
the conclusion that the true arms of
the Emerald Isle were three crowns up
on a blue field, and the English mon
arch ordered that the flag be changed
in accord with the report.
Henry the Eighth, who established
the Church of England, thought that
the three crowns might be taken to in
dictate the badge of the Pope and sub
stituted again the green flag with the
harp emblazoned on it. King Henry
- - 49, H. A~A ehA,a16 rAnrnSnnf
the harp of Brian Boru.
But the English had SO many hard
with the sturdy Irish, and
profted so little by their encounters,
and spent so great an amount of treas
ure in forcing the island into a union
that many a time the Anglo-Saxon
struggle. During the reign of King
James I. the powerful Earl OF
Northampton, in praising the Irish,
their prowess and their flag, wrote:
1.-THE best reason / can see for having
the harp on the flag is that 1t resembles
the country in being such an instru-
ment that it costs more to keep in tune
han 1t is WORTH
The shamrock was placed on the flag
in honor of st. Patrick, who through it
explained the mystery of the Holy
Trinity. 1t replaced a half sun, which
had shown that the followers of the
flag w~orshipped the sun.
Thus the flag remained, with the
space of the blue banner intervening,
until the first day of the nineteenth
century, when the royal emblem of
Great Britain and Ireland, wrought AT
the cost of much blood n treasure,
was hoisted over the castle in Dublin
and a royal salute of tw~enty-one guns
proclaimed the union between the two
countries. A contemporaneous writer
says: A the sound of each gun Ire
land shed a tear. the woods refused to
echo. The last gun of that salute was
the last knell of Ireland's liberty"