Ireland: St Patrick's Cross

Last modified: 2004-06-12 by rob raeside
Keywords: ireland | cross: saint patrick | saint patrick | saltire | cross pattée |
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by Vincent Morley

• The St. Patrick's flag
• St. Patrick's Flag as flag of Church of Ireland
• Origin of the St. Patrick's Cross flag
• 1625 reference to the Flag of St. Patrick
• About St. Patrick

See also:

• Ireland
• Northern Ireland
• Alabama, USA

The St. Patrick's Flag

In 1782 Britain acknowledged the exclusive right of the Irish parliament to legislate for Ireland. To reflect the country's enhanced constitutional status, an order of chivalry called the Order of St Patrick was established in the following year. The regalia worn by the knights of this order showed a red saltire on a white background.

After the union with Britain in 1801, the St Patrick's Cross continued to feature in the arms and flags adopted by various professional and public bodies during the nineteenth century: examples include the Royal Dublin Society, Royal College of Physicians in Ireland, Queen's University Belfast, the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland, etc. These bodies were non-political but tended to draw their membership from the upper classes in which Unionists predominated. They favoured the St Patrick's Cross as a 'safe' national symbol which, unlike the harp, was not associated with nationalism and revolution.

Three uses of the St Patrick's Cross in the twentieth century are worth mentioning.

1. A fascist movement of the 1930s, commonly known as the Blueshirts, used a flag with a red saltire on a pale blue field: they referred to the saltire as the St Patrick's Cross but it's doubtful whether the name can correctly be applied to a red saltire on a blue field. The saltire also appeared on the breast pocket of the blue shirts which they wore.
2. The flag of the Irish Rugby Football Union, which is used by Irish rugby teams when playing overseas, shows a red saltire on a white field, a shield of one the four provinces appears in each of the segments formed by the saltire, and the badge of the IRFU is placed in the centre of the saltire.
3. In recent years a flag has been adopted by advocates of an independent Northern Ireland which shows a red saltire on a blue field (combining the crosses of St Patrick and St Andrew). The red hand of Ulster appears on a six-pointed yellow star (representing the six counties of Northern Ireland) in the centre of the saltire. The use of this flag is very marginal: advocates of independence won only 0.28% of the vote in the recent elections to the Northern Ireland Forum.

Vincent Morley, 20 January 1997

A report on the Irish television channel TnaG about yesterday's St Patrick's day parades showed one which was held at Downpatrick, the town in Northern Ireland where St Patrick is buried. The interesting aspect is that many of the spectators were waving St Patrick's crosses - the first time that I have ever seen the undefaced flag in use. The commentary