Chapter XIV: The Irish Jack

The lineage of the Irish Jack is not so clearly defined as is that of the other Jacks. Although "Paddy" has always been so ready for a shindy that fighting has come to be considered his "natural diversion," he has never found himself particularly at home on the sea. It is on land that he has found play for his fierce delight in mingling where the fray is thickest. It is as a soldier that the Irishman has always excelled. Wellington, Wolseley and Roberts attest his power in command, and in many a forlorn hope the wild energy of the Irish blood in the ranks has scaled the breach and carried the stormers past the anxious moments of the onset, displaying that same "eager, fierce, impetuous valour" with which, in the charge of the Heavy Brigade at Balaclava, the "Inniskillings went into the massive Russian column with a cheer."[74]

[74] Kinglake: "Invasion of the Crimea."

It may be that as Ireland was at no time distinguished as a maritime nation, and its local shipping not developed to any great extent, the display of her national Jack had not been so much in evidence among the sailors of the early days as were the Jacks of the two sister nations.

The banner of St. Patrick (28), which is the "Irish Jack," is a white flag, having on it a red cross of the same saltire or diagonal shape as St. Andrew's cross, the heraldic description being, "_Argent, a saltire gules_," red saltire cross on a white ground (Pl. I., fig. 3).

St. Patrick was the Christian apostle of the Irish, and thus became their traditional patron saint. The story of his life is that he was born in Scotland, at Kilpatrick, near Dunbarton on the Clyde, and being taken prisoner by pirates when a child, was carried into Ireland and sold there as a serf. Having acquired the native language, he escaped to the continent, and afterwards becoming a Christian and having been ordained to service in the Church, returned to Ireland for the purpose of converting the people. The British name said to have been given him in his youth was _Succeath_ (valiant in war), a temperament which he certainly impressed upon the Irish. This name was afterwards, when he returned to Ireland, changed to _Patricius_, in evidence of his noble family descent, and to add importance to his mission.[75]

[75] Smith: "Religion of Ancient Britain."

The legends of the saint date back to A.D. 411, when he is reported to have commenced his mission, and to have afterwards devoted his life to the increase of the well-being of the people and the spread of Christianity throughout Ireland. Tradition reports, although some do not put much faith in it, that the saint suffered martyrdom upon a cross of the shape of this red cross, and thus, when he became the patron saint of Ireland, it was held in recognition as his emblem, and for that reason was adopted as the Irish cross.

On the other hand, some people declare that the cross of the saltire shape is sacred only to St. Andrew.

Another suggestion is that the shape of the saltire cross, both of the Irish and the Scotch, is derived from the Labarum (29), or Sacred Standard, which was raised by Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome, as the imperial standard of his armies. On this he had placed a monogram composed of the first two letters, [Greek: CHR] (ChR), of the Greek form of the sacred name of Christ ([Greek: CHRISTOS]), and the saltire cross is reputed to be the repetition of the [Greek: CH] of the lower part of the Christian emblem.

The Labarum was the official standard of the Emperor of Rome, and upon it were displayed the "insignia" of the emperor of the day. Constantine, after his conversion to Christianity, had changed his previous insignia to the Christian emblem.

Should this latter suggestion of the origin of the cross of the saltire shape be accepted as the preferable one, this saltire cross has yet a most interesting and particular connection with the early history of Ireland.

The Roman Governor of Britain, under the Emperor Diocletian, when, in A.D. 301, the pacification of IBERNIA (Ireland) had been completed, was Constantius Chlorus, the father of Constantine.

The goddess of the pagan islanders was the Goddess Hibernia, whose emblem was a harp, and this Hibernian Irish harp (30) Constantius had in testimony of his success adopted as the insignia for his standard.

After the resignation of Diocletian, Constantius Chlorus and Galerius were created joint emperors of Rome, and, dividing the empire between them, Galerius took the East and Constantius the West.

The death of Constantius occurred soon afterwards in England, at the city of York (Eboracum), and there he was succeeded as Emperor of Rome by his son Constantine.

Constantius had in some degree restrained the persecution of the Christians in Britain, which had raged under Diocletian, but it was now completely suppressed by the new emperor. Carrying with him his faith in Christianity, which he had learned in Britain, Constantine removed to the continent to engage in the contest for the command of the empire to which he had fallen heir, and in the battle of the Milvian Bridge, near Rome, in A.D. 312, he defeated the opposing eastern forces under Maxentius, and entered into undisputed possession of his position as sole emperor. It was just before this engagement that Constantine is reported to have seen a cross shining in the heavens at midday, having on it the inscription, [Greek: EN TOUTÔ NIKA] ("In this conquer"--"_In hoc signo vinces_"), and, therefore, recognizing the Christian emblem, he adopted the Christian cross as his standard and placed the sacred monogram upon his Labarum. This victory resulted in the official recognition of the Christian religion, and the attaching to it of all the political power of the Emperor of Rome.

Constantius had lived, and Constantine the Great had been born and brought up, in the north of England, which, during the Roman occupation, had been converted to Christianity by missionaries from Scotland, whence St. Patrick afterwards also went to Ireland; and as it was to Constantine that the Christians owed their rescue from persecution, his insignia would, therefore, be heartily received. The early Christians, through this source, may have adopted the X cross, the lower part of Constantino's Christian monogram, as their emblem, and thus it had become associated in Ireland with the Christian labours of St. Patrick, their apostle and patron saint. In this "story of the Irish Jack," it is a notable transition that the harp emblem of Hibernia, carried by Constantius, and transmitted by him to his son, and by Constantine changed to the Christian Labarum, should in this diagonal cross of St. Patrick have been returned to become the emblem of Ireland.

Whichever may have been the source of its origin, the saltire cross, in its form of the red cross of St. Patrick, is by both lines of descent intimately associated with the history of Ireland, and is rightfully claimed as one of its national emblems.

The harp, too, has its story much later than that of St. Patrick's cross, but yet bringing an interesting connection with the patron saint.

The ancient arms of Ireland, from the time of Henry II., in 1172, had been three golden crowns set upon a blue ground.[76]

[76] "The Book of Public Arms."

These ancient arms of Ireland are the arms of the Province of Munster, and are now worn on the helmet plate and glengarry of the Royal Munster Fusiliers regiment of the British army.

Henry VIII. was the first English king who used an Irish emblem. When he was proclaimed King of Ireland, he placed the harp of Hibernia upon the coinage which he then issued, instead of the "three crowns" which had been used under his predecessors, but he did not introduce the harp into his royal arms, nor place the red cross of St. Patrick upon his banner.

The first English monarch to insert an Irish emblem in the official insignia of the sovereign was Queen Elizabeth, who introduced one in the design of her "Great Seal." Instead of using the three Irish crowns, she inserted a harp as the emblem of the Irish nation, and among the banners displayed at her funeral Ireland was represented by a blue flag having upon it a golden harp surmounted by a crown.[77] James I., her successor, was the first king to introduce an Irish emblem into the "royal standard," and from that time onward the golden harp of Hibernia, on the ancient blue ground of the three Irish crowns, has been shown in one of the quarters of the British standard as the emblem of Ireland. In the arms of all the sovereigns, from James I., 1603 (15), to and including William IV., 1837, the front of the harp was formed by the female figure representing the goddess Hibernia. During the Victorian period a change was introduced in the shape of the harp, which has been altered to that of the ancient Irish harp, connected in form and legend with King Brian Boru (Boroimhe).

[77] Hulme: "Flags of the World."

The exploits of this most noted of the early kings of Ireland had been mainly devoted to the defence of his kingdom against the invasions of the Danes during the period when, under Canute, they had well-nigh conquered all England.

Although in the main successful, he was slain in battle, according to some, in 1039,[78] or, as others report, in the hour of victory over the Danes at Clontarf, near Dublin, in 1014.[79]

[78] King: "National Arms."

[79] "Hadyn's Index."

The king, having accepted Christianity, presented, in 1004, a golden votive offering upon the altar of the church at Armagh, and here, in accordance with his dying request, his body was buried after the battle of Clontarf.[80]

[80] "Ulster Journal of Archæology," Vol. I., September, 1894.

This city of Armagh is reputed to have been founded about A.D. 445, by St. Patrick, and to this account is accredited the ecclesiastical pre-eminence which has always enshrined the city, for the Bishop of Armagh is the "Archbishop and Primate of all Ireland" of the Protestant Church, and it is the See city also of the "Primate of Ireland" of the Roman Catholic Church.

Of all the traditional patrons of Irish music, King Brian Boru was the most renowned, and thus in poetry and song his name became identified with the Irish harp.

The minstrelsy of the Irish harper has held sway and been cherished through all the ages by the Irish people, whose temperament may have been affected, or else has been most touchingly expressed, by its strange and mystic cadences. The sweet pathos of these ancient melodies has given tone and inspiration to most of the Irish songs, markedly to those of the sweet singer Moore, whose music has installed in affectionate memory,

"The harp that once through Tara's halls
The soul of music shed."

In the old seal of Carrickfergus (31), granted by James I., the form of this ancient harp of Brian Boru is excellently displayed.

Within the circle are the initials of the King, I.R. (_Jacobus Rex_), and the date 1605, and on the shield in the centre are three Irish harps, having the rounded front pillar and the curious upper sweep of the neck, termed the "harmonic curve," of the type known as the Irish harp of Brian Boru.

Although this Irish harp was introduced in the seal of the Irish city during his reign, the emblem which had been placed in his royal arms by James I. as the emblem of Ireland was the angelic harp of Hibernia, and in this form it remained on the royal standards of all the succeeding sovereigns until Queen Victoria, in whose royal arms (32) the Irish harp was displayed.

In 1849, when Queen Victoria first visited Ireland, being the first occasion upon which a British Queen had ever visited the Island, a medal was struck to commemorate the event. On this are the profiles of Her Majesty the Queen and the Prince Consort, and on the reverse (33) is the old Irish harp surmounted by the royal crown.

It is true that the angelic harp is frequently to be seen upon the flags flown as royal standards, but the Irish harp is most beautifully shown in the coat-of-arms upon the back of Her Majesty's royal throne in the House of Lords at Westminster (34).

As the harp of the pagan goddess Hibernia had been changed to the Christian cross of St. Patrick, so now again it had been followed by the Irish harp of the Christian King, Brian Boru, and through his grave at St. Patrick's ancient city of Armagh is again connected with Ireland's patron saint. Thus, whether it be cross or harp, both the official emblems of Ireland are associated with St. Patrick.

During only one period in the early story of our Flag had Ireland been represented on its folds, as is shown in Cromwell's Jacks and in the Commonwealth Ensign (Pl. IV., figs. 1 and 2), but it had not been by a cross, as were the other nationalities, but by a golden harp on a blue ground.

Another emblem of Ireland, the green shamrock, is also connected in legend with St. Patrick, as having been used by him, through the lesson of its three leaves joined in one, in explaining the doctrine of the Trinity. Thus both the shamrock and the red saltire cross form the salient features of the insignia of the "Most Illustrious Order of St. Patrick," the Irish order of knighthood.

The Irish red cross on a white ground had been the ancient banner of the Irish family of the Fitzgeralds before the time of the conquest of Ireland under Henry II., and it still appears in the arms of their descendants (35). It appears to have been used as a flag at Cromwell's funeral, but notwithstanding its still earlier associations the red cross of St. Patrick does not seem to have been formally recognized as the general national emblem for Ireland until about the close of the seventeenth century. Its entrance into the Union Jack had long been delayed for reasons which will be pointed out.

Though the kings of England had, since Henry II., in 1172, been "lords paramount," and since Henry VIII. been "kings of Ireland," the national Jack of Ireland had not been joined with the other Jacks. When the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew were combined in the "additional" Jack of James, in 1606, it was not included, nor was it afterwards, in the first Union Jack of Queen Anne, in 1707; so that for all these centuries the red cross of St. Patrick had continued alone. At length, the time was coming when another change was to be made in the Union Jack, and it was in 1801, under George III., that the red saltire cross of Ireland first joined the two sister crosses. For the immediately previous two hundred years the Irishman had gallantly contributed his prowess to the glories won under the two-crossed Jack, in which his nation had not been represented; but from this time onward his own Irish cross entered into its proper place in the national Union Jack, and received its acknowledged position as the emblem of the Irish kingdom.