ABSTRACT
The significance of symbols as factors of political integration has received much attention from researchers of nationalism and nation-states. The same way as since the beginning of the 1880s Nationalists, followers of the Parliamentary Party, penetrated into Irish local administration and the Boards of Guardians a process of nationalization took place on the level of political symbols with the creation of the Home Rule Movement. With much more justification than in the case of the flag the unofficial Irish 'national anthem' from 1880 until 1916, God save Ireland, can be viewed as a creation of the Parliamentary Party. At visits of the Irish members of parliament and especially of the Party's chairman Charles S. Parnell, occasions which often took on the character of public festivals, the population decorated the streets with the green flag. In Dublin, in addition to O'Connell Street, numerous minor streets were given the names of figures from Irish history.
