Harp Flags
The harp (or cláirseach) has long been a symbol of Ireland. It first featured on Irish coins in the reign of Henry VIII around 1534. During the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the harp became adorned with progressively more decoration, ultimately becoming a "winged maiden". In the nineteenth century, the Maid of Erin, a personification of Ireland, was a woman holding a more realistic harp than the "winged maiden". This style of harp was then also used in Irish flags. The harp on the modern coat of arms of the Republic of Ireland is modelled on the "Brian Boru" harp in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, as it appeared after an 1840s restoration.
Read more about this topic: Cross-border Flag For Ireland
Famous quotes containing the words harp and/or flags:
“A young woman, pretty, lively, with a harp as elegant as herself; and both placed near a window, cut down to the ground, and opening on a little lawn, surrounded in the rich foliage of summer, was enough to catch any man’s heart. The season, the scene, the air, were all favourable to tenderness and sentiment.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)
“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)