History of the St Patrick's Cross
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
Origin of the St Patrick's Cross
The origin of the St Patrick's Cross has been traced to the
establishment of the Knights of Saint Patrick in 1783, when the
red saltire on white was included in the Order's regalia. But
where did it come from? Three theories have been put forward:
- The 'old flag' theory:
This is the theory that the St Patrick's cross may have been
an old but uncommon flag of Ireland. This theory has been
supported by a selection of maps, seals and drawings which
show saltire flags being used in Ireland at various times
during the 17th and 18th centuries. However all of these
examples can be explained as either the Scottish St Andrew's
cross or the Spanish Cross of Burgundy.
- The 'Duke of Leinster' theory:
The arms of the Duke of Leinster, the highest-ranking member
of the Irish aristocracy, were a red saltire on a white
field and the duke was a founding member of the Order of St
Patrick. This theory holds that the Order may have included
the duke's arms in its regalia as a compliment to him, but
the contemporary sources contain nothing to support this
view.
- The 'St Patrick's-day badge' theory:
It was a common custom, from at least the early 17th to the
mid-19th century, to wear a cross made of paper or ribbon on
17 March, St Patrick's day. The Saint Patrick's Cross in the
regalia of the order may have been inspired by these popular
badges. However, surviving examples of such badges come in
many colours and they were invariably worn upright - as
equal-armed crosses rather than as saltires.
Vincent Morley, 29 May
Contemporary evidence indicates that the proposal to include
a saltire in the insignia of the Order of Saint Patrick was
condemned by contemporary Irish opinion. One press report from
February 1783 complained that 'the breasts of Irishmen were to
be decorated by the bloody Cross of St. Andrew, and not that of
the tutelar Saint of their natural isle'. Another article
reported that 'the Cross of St. Andrew the Scotch saint is to
honour the Irish order of St. Patrick, by being inserted within
the star of the order' and described this as 'a manifest insult
to common sense and to national propriety'. It is clear that the
saltire was not associated with either Ireland, the Duke of
Leinster, or Saint Patrick in the popular mind in 1783. Why,
then, was it included in the regalia of the Order of Saint
Patrick?
This is the official description of the badge of the Order of
Saint Patrick which the lord lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Temple
forwarded to his superiors in London in January 1783:
And the said Badge shall be of Gold surrounded with a Wreath
of Shamrock or Trefoil, within which shall be a Circle of
Gold, containing the Motto of our said Order in Letters of
Gold Viz. QUIS SEPARABIT? together with the date 1783, being
the year in which our said Order was founded, and encircling
the Cross of St Patrick Gules, surmounted with a
Trefoil Vert each of its leaves charged with an Imperial Crown
Or upon a field of Argent.
It seems clear that Lord Temple regarded the saltire as a
recognised symbol of Saint Patrick. However an open letter
addressed to Lord Temple which was published in a Dublin
newspaper in late February 1783 explains why the saltire was
rejected by the Irish public:
The Cross generally used on St. Patrick's day, by Irishmen, is
the Cross-Patee, which is small in the centre, and so goes on
widening to the ends, which are very broad; this is not
recorded, as the Irish Cross, but has custom for time
immemorial for its support, which is generally allowed as
sufficient authority for any similar institution ... As
bearing the arms of another person is reckoned very
disgraceful by the laws of honour, how much more so is it, in
an order which ought to carry honour to the highest pitch, to
take a cross for its emblem, which has been acknowledged for
many ages as the property of an order in another country? If
the cross generally worn as the emblem of the Saint who is
ascribed to Ireland, is not agreeable to your Excellency, sure
many others are left to choose from, without throwing Ireland
into so ignominious a point of view, as to adopt the one that
Scotland has so long a claim to.
When I first came across this letter I was surprised and more
than a little sceptical because I had never heard of a link
between Saint Patrick and the cross pattée. The St Patrick's
day badges from the early 19th century that I have seen in the
National Museum of Ireland all have Greek crosses, i.e. arms of
equal length and thickness. But just a few weeks ago I came
across proof that the cross pattée was indeed associated with
Saint Patrick. I found it in a booklet that happened to be bound
in the same volume as a pamphlet I was reading in the National
Library of Ireland. The booklet is called The Fundamental
Laws, Statutes, and Constitutions of the Ancient and Most
Benevolent Order of the Friendly Brothers of Saint Patrick
and was published at Dublin in 1763. The 'Friendly Brothers'
were a mutual benefit society formed by Dublin merchants - the
members paid regular dues to the Order and in return were given
financial support if they fell on hard times. The Order used
quasi-Masonic rituals and was organised in lodges. One of their
rules was that members had to wear the medal of the order when
attending lodge meetings. The badge was described as follows:
the Ensigns of the ORDER, being a golden Medal, on which shall
be impressed Saint Patrick's Cross, fixed in a Heart, over
which is a Crown. The whole being set round with an emblematic
Knot embellished with Trefoil, or Shamrogue Leaves, and this
motto, FIDELIS, ET CONSTANS: implying Fidelity and Constancy
in Religion, Loyalty, and Friendship.
There was an engraving of the badge, and I made a freehand
drawing of the central element only, a scan of which is shown
below:
Left:
Detail from the badge of the Friendly Brothers of Saint Patrick,
1763.
In the last week I have turned up a further, and much earlier
piece of evidence. Irish coins in the middle ages typically had
the king's head on the obverse and a thin Greek cross on the
reverse. In 1460-1 however, a copper farthing was issued which
showed the head of Saint Patrick on the obverse and a cross pattée
on the reverse - the coin is number 4399 in Seaby's Coins and
Tokens of Ireland catalogue. Both features are very unusual
and it is unlikely to be a coincidence that they occur together.
In fact, this would appear to have been a very early example of
a commemorative coin: 461 is one of the dates reported for the
death of Saint Patrick and it seems likely to me that the
farthing was a special issue struck to mark the 1,000th
anniversary of the saint's death.
Left:
The St Patrick's half-farthing of 1460-1.
There can be no doubt that the third of the three theories
about the origin of the Cross of Saint Patrick put forward above
is the correct one, but it must be asked why Lord Temple
substituted the saltire for the cross pattée? I suspect that
this decision was a result of the desire to link the cross and
the shamrock in a single badge. It is not possible to combine a
large shamrock (and it must be large if it is to bear a crown on
each leaf) with a cross pattée without obscuring one or the
other, but it is very easy to superimpose a shamrock on a
saltire - which is, after all, only a rotated cross. While this
change angered members of the Irish public, it probably seemed
like a minor and a reasonable modification to an English viceroy
who, in any event, took a very cynical view of the Order of
Saint Patrick, referring in his private correspondence to 'the
nonsense of the farce of the Order'.
Vincent Morley, 30 May - 1 June 1999
Use of the flag seems likely to increase as a result of a
recent decision. The general synod of the Church of Ireland (the
governing body of the Irish branch of the Anglican communion)
has decided that in future 'only flags specifically authorised
would be flown in church grounds. These are either the flag of
St Patrick, or the Compass-rose flag of the Anglican communion'
(report in the Irish Times, 19 May 1999). This decision
is intended to end the common practice of flying the British
Union Flag from churches in Northern Ireland - a practice which
was felt to be involving the church in politics.
Vincent Morley, 2 June 1999
St Patrick's Cross today
After the Act of Union the red saltire was inserted
into the existing flag of Great Britain (itself a
combination of the English St George's Cross and the
Scottish St Andrew's Cross) as a symbol of Ireland,
thereby forming the modern Union Jack:
While the St Patrick's Cross does not appear to have
been used as a flag before the Union, it has been
incorporated in a wide range of flags since then. Among
these are the flags of the Commissioners of Irish
Lights, the Royal Dublin Society, the Irish Rugby
Football Union, the Freemasons and the Royal College of
Surgeons in Ireland, as well as the former flags of the
'Blueshirts' and of Irish Shipping Ltd. In recent years,
the St Patrick's Cross has been used on St Patrick's day
in Northern Ireland.
![[The flag of the Blueshirts]](images/ie-gorm.gif)
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Left: the flag of the Blueshirts.
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Right: Blueshirts marching in
Carrick-on-Suir, 1933.
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![[St Patrick's Cross being carried by Blueshirts]](images/cros8.gif)
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![[Masonic Order in Ireland]](images/cros2.gif)
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Left: banner of the Masonic Order
in Ireland.
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Right: banner of the Royal College
of Surgeons in Ireland.
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![[Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland]](images/cros3.gif)
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![[Commissioners of Irish Lights]](images/cros4.gif)
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Left: the flag of the Commissioners
of Irish Lights being lowered at a light house.
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Right: Derry Unionists displaying
the St Patrick's Cross.
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![[St Patrick's Cross being used by Unionists]](images/cros7.jpg)
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