The Northern Ireland flags issue is one that divides the population along sectarian lines. Depending on political allegiance, people identify with differing flags and symbols, some of which have, or have had, official status in Northern Ireland.
The Flags and Emblems (Display) Act (Northern Ireland) 1954 prohibited the display of any flag which was "likely to cause a breach of public order", and gave the police powers to deal with it. However, it specifically excluded the Union flag from its provisions. In 1964, police moved in to remove an Irish tricolour from the window of an office in the Falls Road, after Ian Paisley had publicly said that if they did not, he would do so personally. This resulted in serious rioting. The Act was repealed in 1987.
In 2002 Belfast City Council displayed the tricolour along with the Union flag in the Lord Mayor's parlour during the term of Sinn Féin Lord Mayor Alex Maskey.Conversely in 1997, when the Social Democratic and Labour Party's (SDLP) Alban Maginness was Lord Mayor neither flag was displayed. In September 2003 Belfast City Council discussed flying the flag alongside the Union Flag on designated occasions.
A decision in December 2012 to fly the Union flag over Belfast City Hall only on certain designated days, instead of all the year round as previously, led to protests which included riots in which police officers were injured.
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Famous quotes containing the words northern ireland, northern, ireland, flags and/or issue:
“For generations, a wide range of shooting in Northern Ireland has provided all sections of the population with a pastime which ... has occupied a great deal of leisure time. Unlike many other countries, the outstanding characteristic of the sport has been that it was not confined to any one class.”
—Northern Irish Tourist Board. quoted in New Statesman (London, Aug. 29, 1969)
“Our ancestors were savages. The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every state which has risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar wild source. It was because the children of the Empire were not suckled by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the children of the northern forests who were.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Come, fix upon me that accusing eye.
I thirst for accusation. All that was sung.
All that was said in Ireland is a lie
Breed out of the contagion of the throng,
Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The flags are natures newly found.
Rifles grow sharper on the sight.
There is a rumble of autumnal marching,
From which no soft sleeve relieves us.
Fate is the present desperado.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“If someone does something we disapprove of, we regard him as bad if we believe we can deter him from persisting in his conduct, but we regard him as mad if we believe we cannot. In either case, the crucial issue is our control of the other: the more we lose control over him, and the more he assumes control over himself, the more, in case of conflict, we are likely to consider him mad rather than just bad.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)