ABSTRACT
Each year, from mid-June onwards, many Protestant working-class areas of Northern Ireland are bedecked with a variety of flags that display the population’s sense of a British identity and their political association with the United Kingdom (Jarman 1997). Many people have flag-pole holders as a permanent fixture on their houses or shop fronts from which personal displays are made, while in many staunch Loyalist1 areas flags are flown from almost every lamppost and other public sites. Many of the main thoroughfares in Loyalist housing estates and in predominately Protestant towns and villages will also be decorated with bunting strung across the road, often in the form of alternating red, white and blue pennants or as miniature Union Flag designs. The most recognisable of the flags are the Union Jack of the United Kingdom and the flag of Northern Ireland, the cross of St George with the Red Hand of Ulster on a shield in the centre, which appears in a variety of forms. Some areas also display flags that are associated with the various Loyalist paramilitary organisations such as the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Young Citizen Volunteers, the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Freedom Fighters, each of which has designed or adapted their own formal flags. These include a variety of designs: the purple flag of the UVF with the Red Hand of Ulster in a gold oval surrounded by the word ‘For God and Ulster’ and the blue and white YCV flags, with references to the battles of the First World War, are based on historical emblems carried by the original UVF in their opposition to Home Rule in the 1912-16 period. But the sky blue UDA flags and black UFF flags with a clenched Red Hand in the centre are of more recent design, despite their use of Latin mottoes ‘Quis Separabit’ and ‘Feriens Tego’. The UDA also sometimes fly the French Tricolour in Loyalist areas, but this appears to be due to the colour scheme matching the Union Flag, in a design that replicates the Irish Tricolour, rather than representing any allegiance to France.
