the flag was bought in bangor in the 70's
however it looks like it was machine made (to me) so there may be more.......
will keep trying......
also , if the counsel is worried that this cross community event will be 'hijacked' for political reasons (or if the Empress will be holing a tricolour) shouldnt we push for Protestant public figures to be iinvolved in the planing of the event? a platform to make our contribution and pay our respect to a common cultural icon,if you will, (I beleive people like Ian Adamson have wriiten extensivly abbout St. pats. relevance to the protestants)... it'ed blatantly end in a riot, but then the 12ths image has been dragged through the gutter by Republician violence and the orchastrated civil disruption that always makes more headlines than the event , so in the interests of parity of esteem.......................

I would actually really like to see it become a cross-community success and totally agree that you'd need protestant/unionist involvement at the organising level. I presume that's why the council decided to get involved since by definition they're supposed to be representative.

Re: the flag I'm hoping to do a detailed post on flags soon - although it will involve working out how multi-paged posts work in this software!!

I cant see the protestant/unionist community getting behind and supporting a St Patrick Days parade, when a well known sin fein /ira member is well supporting the venture!!! and mp for the constituency

Well I doubt Gerry Adams (if that's the MP you refer to) will be giving a 'rallying the troops' speech at the St Patrick's day parade. I think we have to give this a chance

If St Patrick's day is ever to become something other than a republican rally we have to play our part too.

I support the st pats celebrations that the Apprentice Boys put on in Londonderry

In our very hostility we see why we should get involved,sinn feins monopoly on cultural expression (and our reliance on one or two comemerative events) dramaticaly changes the wider worlds preception of the conflict and its potental solutions, we appear, in short, as a by-product of 'colonialism', as opposed to an ancient and indiginous race. Whilst we look only to the Union era of our history, we reach to sinn fein a license
to present our heriage in just those terms
(n.b. look at the time line in the lonely plants .guide to.Ireland : "1690 - English/Protestant settlers colonise Ulster", do you beleive thats true ? that one day you just poof! and appeared in a place that your names can be traced back in to prechristian times (mcdonald-desended from the viking donaugh .Craig-meaning bard or poet-the gaelic version is Mctague (i.e. taig(!)). until we look at our peoples ancient identity, we give our own ancestors , their amazing art and language ,wholesale, to the alter of neo-Fascist Republicanism, to distord and propagandise to their own ends in any way they see fit,our ancestors fought England,a nation whos behaviour in Ireland was at times inexcusable,until we show people that we are not simply Englands lackies, but a separte people from both Anglo and Romanised Gael, we fail to honour our history and culture,indeed we contribute to its disgrace.Stevies right ,if we put our young men in the same parade as I.R.A. b*****ds, they will of course try for justice."East Belfast Ulster Scots True Spirt of Saint Patrick Festival (yanks welcome)" anyone?

Paul I sometimes have difficulty in your comments and have to read them twice to understand but I still can't quite get what you mean by "if we put our young men in the same parade as I.R.A. b*****ds, they will of course try for justice."

im saying that if you put a young Protestant in the same parade as convicted IRA terrorists, he may well feel aggressive. he may well act on his aggression. this is a bad thing. however if you accept that this is a likely reaction, what other than grevience , a sense of injustice, could motivate this aggressive responce? is it bigotry to hate the I.R.A.? if not then we must accept theres a reason for hating them , this reason, i would content, is the fact that these guys brought great suffering to our community and our today lorded as heroes around the world and have made a fortune selling their version of events. in other words they have been rewarded for their crimes. this is an outstanding injustice which will motivate aggression in the hearts and minds of young prods. this is a bad thing. i was not suggesting that i would be siting at home yo-hoing if this occoured, im saying that there are ligitimate reasons for feeling anger at this parade, anger that it can be this way and anger that no one of authority seems to give a damn. This why i said maybe we should have our own non political (purely cultural,...... i know, i know) wholesome St. Pats day far away from Sinn Feins pro- terror march. but i rant again, sorry, but i do think what im saying is true.

You're assuming of course that people will be able to spot the terrorists or that they'll even be there. It's unlikely that even if there were one or two in the crowd that they'd be wearing T-shirts advertising it (they're not all as stupid as Jonny Adair).

*lol* well , anyone over the age of 13 could probably spot a few familiar faces. but i will admit that the statement you read did sound like an endorsment of inter community violence for its own sake, it was not intended as such but as a reflection of the general sense of disillousion most folk feel with good friday
( I feel it is a process of appeasment rather than one of peace, and i dont think im alone in that) and i feel this disillousion will justify for some people getting involved in riots, i am not quite silly enough to think that there will not some who will be there for the sport of it, but i think most kids , when sitting around and somone runs up and says theres a riot kicking of will get up and go from a feeling of insecurity that will manifest as anger, rather than under the complussion of peer pressure or the love of riots, in this they are not bad people, as most of us watching at home would be inclined to maybe think, but
disenfranchised kids who are smart enough to see that things are not fair, this is why i used the j word, if id said
"if we put our young men in the same parade as I.R.A. b*****ds, they will of course get stuck into a riot" it would suggest that people react to overt displays of provo worship for fun, and i dont think thats the case, so phrased it in that ,rather silly, way.

they may not all be so dumb(or callous and untouchable,how did the wee man avoid long term detention for so long?) as to wear the t-shirt.............
but one or two are.......


(its the third image down)

Once again tricolours were out in force, it's a disgrace to expect us to embrace our neighbours when such blatant sectarianism is involved....The Lord Mayor should be deeply ashamed...