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 The Act was repealed in 1987.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:
“... in Northern Ireland, if you don’t have basic Christianity, rather than merely religion, all you get out of the experience of living is bitterness.”
—Bernadette Devlin (b. 1947)
“Warmest climes but nurse the cruelest fangs: the tiger of Bengal crouches in spiced groves of ceaseless verdure. Skies the most effulgent but basket the deadliest thunders: gorgeous Cuba knows tornadoes that never swept tame northern lands.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Sport and death are the two great socializing factors in Ireland ...”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“No doubt I shall go on writing, stumbling across tundras of unmeaning, planting words like bloody flags in my wake. Loose ends, things unrelated, shifts, nightmare journeys, cities arrived at and left, meetings, desertions, betrayals, all manner of unions, adulteries, triumphs, defeats ... these are the facts.”
—Alexander Trocchi (1925–1983)
“If the issue doesn’t matter a whole lot, just drop it. You don’t have to win every fight ... and you will not have lost any of your authority by giving in when it doesn’t matter very much.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)