AN GAOḊAL.
483
ORD NA CRUISE.
(The Order of the Cross.)
April 8, 1885.
To The Editor of The GAEL:
Dear Sir, ;— In our issue of February I enunci¬
ated the principles of the society of the Order of
the Cross, and my present letter is a supplement
there with the view to the further elucidation of
my subject, as some of my reasons may not be
readily apprehended by all readers. I have advi¬
sed my compatriots of Irish birth or origin to look
for the freedom of their mother country from God
alone, and to therefore put their trus in the Agnus
Dei and Cross as the insignia of the new Order;
for I am intuitively convinced that the fighting of
the Irish people is not against flesh and blood
merely, and the visible power of Great Britain
but against the invisible demons of the air and a¬
gainst the scarlet dragon of the Apocalypse. I
have advised prayers to be offered for the conver¬
sion of England that she may be brought into fav¬
or, and therefore under the scourge of national
humiliation; for I am persuaded as long as she is
hated of God she can never be overthrown; and
this view is agréable to the prophecy of St Mala¬
chy, who foretold that after Ireland had remained
during seven centuries under the cruel tyranny of
England, her faithful people would obtain mercy
for their heartless persecuting oppressors. ; who
in their turn should be submitted to the most se¬
vere chastisements. I have advised the wisdom of
placing a scarlet cross upon the national vexillum
or standard of Ireland to indicate alive and faith¬
ful nation, and to remind my countrymen that the
emblem of salvation was, by the dirction of Heaven
emblazoned upon the victorious La arum of the
Emperor Constantine. I have also counselled the
advisibility of impregnating the green national
color of Ireland with a strong tinge of olive in ord¬
er to denote permanent prosperity. The green is
considered a very unlucky color by the peasantry
of Ireland, and to them the harp, in our day so
intimately connected with begging minstrelsy, is
a positive symbol of loss. It is said that Henry
the Eighth of England, who wishing to invest his
Irish enemies with some feeble, trashy talisman,
was the first who quartered the harp upon the na¬
tional escutcheon of Ireland; and green is consid¬
ered, in some works on heraldry, as emblematic of
a prolific but weak people, whose destiny it is to
serve others. What might be styled a national flag
did not belong to Ireland in the days of her inde¬
pendence, but every chief ranged his followers un¬
der the peculiar banner of his clan, but as to devi¬
ces they appeared to have been arbitrarily chosen
without regard to national idiosyncrasy. The
standards of the ancient Fenians were of srol or
fine linen, and these, according to the learned Ow¬
en Connellan quoting the Lay of the sixteen chiefs,
or the Cattle Prey of Tara, were of various colors
blue, green, red and white, and bore representa¬
tions of trees, animals, military weapons, and mus¬
ical instruments, such as the yew-tree, the moun¬
tain ash, the wolf-dog, the dear, etc. They also
bore significant names, and that of the Generalis.
simo Finn was called
Gall Gréine,
which has been rendered "Sunburst," and on it
were represented the sun and its rays. I do not
find that the harp was emblazoned on any of these
standards, nor was green then the national color
since in the Ode addressed to Oscar, at the com¬
mencement of the Battle of Gabhra the standard
of the monarch Cairbre is called
meirg is dearg ḋaṫa,
i.e. scarlet colored, and from the term 'suaithean¬
tas," literally variegation, applied to the banners
of an army, it becomes evident that the Irish had no
fixed national color in ancient times, a fact further
more corroborated by the historical tract called
the Battle of Magh Leana, fought in the second
century, where mention is made of the many col¬
ored banners of Conn of the Hundred Battles. A¬
mong the seventy standards borne by the army of
Brian Boru at the Battle of Clontarf, according to
the Cogaḋ Gall re Gaeḋil —
the colors green, red, blue, yellow etc. are men¬
tioned as well as certain gold-spangled banner
than had been successful in many engagements.
It appears that the standard of the Craobh Ruadh
was a yellow lion upon green satin, and in the
notes to the Battle of Magh Rath the banners of
O'Doherty, O'Sullivan and O'Loghlin of Clare are
described as to their different devices, the first of
which however was of "white satin."
According to Sir James Ware, the original arms
used by the Milesians since their arrival in Ire¬
land till the days of Ollamh Fodhla were a dead
serpent and the rod of Moses after the example of
their Gadelian ancestors, but the arms proper to
Ireland, or at least for some ages attributable to it,
he says, is a gold harp strung with silver chords
on a field azure encircled with green; and it would
appear that after the days of Ollamh Fodhla, the
arms of Ireland according to Ulysses Aldrovandus,
were in one part of the escutcheon Or — an arm
armed with a sword, in the other part Argent, a
semi-eagle. There is no authority that I am aware
of to show that green was ever used in Ireland as
the national color, before the English invasion, or
that the harp was used as a patriotic device or ar¬
morial emblazonment, by the Irish before the
fourteenth century.
From what I have above written, it becomes evi¬
dent that the cross has never yet appeared as a sole
conspicuous device upon the national colors of
Ireland; but what is styled the cross of St. Pat¬
rick has been quartered by the enemy with those
of St. George and St. Andrew upon the Union Flag
Gail Ġréine ?
a ḋaṫ ?
