Tricolour ‘continues to inspire’ as symbol of peace, says Taoiseach

The message inherent in the colours of the Tricolour “continues to inspire”, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said at a commemorative ceremony in Waterford on Sunday. “The act of raising the green, white and orange in Waterford’s Mall symbolised peace between communities and expressed the hope of a shared future on a shared island together, a message that continues to inspire today,” he said.

He was speaking at a ceremony to mark the 175th anniversary of the first raising of the flag on March 7th, 1848, at the Wolfe Tone Club on Waterford’s Mall by Young Irelander Thomas Francis Meagher where it flew for eight days before being removed by the then authorities.

The flag had been presented to him as a gift by a group of French women sympathetic to the cause of Ireland and to symbolise the aspiration towards unity of Irish Catholics (green) and Protestants (orange)

“Thomas Francis Meagher was a major figure in Ireland’s struggle for independent. His portrait hangs in the Taoiseach’s office,” Mr Varadkar said.

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Following his role in the 1848 rebellion Meagher was transported to Van Dieman’s Land, now Tasmania, from where he escaped to the US in 1852, becoming a brigadier general in the army and leader of the Irish Brigade on the Union side in the civil war because of his opposition to slavery. Afterwards he was Montana’s territorial secretary of state before his death by drowning at the age of 43 in 1867.

An Ipsos opinion poll published in The Irish Times last December found that almost half (47 per cent) of people in the Republic said that any changes to the Tricolour would make them less likely to vote for a united Ireland.

Members of the diplomatic corps at the Waterford ceremony included ambassadors to Ireland from Great Britain, United States, France, Canada, Australia, Belgium and Ukraine.