Colours and Crest
Though Leinster Rugby now compete in blue, the team wore green during the early years. The harp has long been associated with the province of Leinster and so Leinster Rugby have sported the harp since their first interprovincial game against Ulster. Though the provincial colours have changed since then, the current provincial crest remains a modernised version of this harp. Legend has it that the harp was adopted Leinster Symbol in the 17th century when Eoghan Ruadh O’Neill flew a green flag with a golden harp from his ship, the St Francis having anchored it at Dunkirk. O'Neill later returned to Ireland to help the Irish Confederation whose headquarters were in Kilkenny, Leinster. The current crest was introduced in 2005 as Leinster Rugby held no copyright on the previous crest. The new, stylised crest, is made specific to Leinster Rugby as it incorporates the harp with a rugby ball. The Leinster Rugby crest is on all official club merchandise including replica jerseys.
The province's current kit is blue with gold trim and a white harp, whilst the second kit is white with a blue harp.
The Leinster jersey also features three stars above the crest, to represent the three Heineken Cup titles won to date.
Read more about this topic: Leinster Rugby
Famous quotes containing the words colours and, colours and/or crest:
“I should need
Colours and words that are unknown to man,
To paint the visionary dreariness”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“Your wits can’t thicken in that soft moist air, on those white springy roads, in those misty rushes and brown bogs, on those hillsides of granite rocks and magenta heather. You’ve no such colours in the sky, no such lure in the distances, no such sadness in the evenings. Oh the dreaming! the dreaming! the torturing, heart-scalding, never satisfying dreaming, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming!”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“What shall he have that killed the deer?
His leather skin and horns to wear.
Then sing him home.
Take thou no scorn to wear the horn,
It was a crest ere thou wast born;
Thy father’s father wore it,
And thy father bore it.
The horn, the horn, the lusty horn
Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)