Bunreacht na hÉireann will serve as an important touchstone and base point for the constitution of an integrated island.
It will evidently be amended by the addition of one million citizens whose outlook (in general) might be more conservative than the current disposition in the South.
The Irish Tricolour was first presented to Thomas Francis Meagher, leader of the Young Irelanders, in 1848. It was intended to symbolise the inclusion and hoped-for union between Roman Catholics (symbolised by the green colour) and Protestants (symbolised by the orange colour).
This was a worthy but naïve attempt to engage in ‘heroic brotherhood’ with our near neighbours and thus avoid further division and destruction on the island. This gesture of goodwill was rejected.
The flag was flown above the GPO in Dublin in 1916, and was later given constitutional status under the 1937 Constitution of Ireland.
With the integration of the island and the disappearance of 'Northern Ireland', there will be no further need to indulge the feelings of ‘Britishness’ of Unionists, and so the sentiment implicit in the flag will become redundant.
The Irish people will then be at liberty to devise a new flag to represent their new status in the world.
Below are the words of Amhrán na bhFiann (The Soldier’s Song) in translation.
It was written in 1907 by Peadar Kearney and was later sung in the General Post Office during the Easter Rising of 1916.
The Soldier’s Song:
We’ll sing a song, a soldier’s song,
With cheering rousing chorus,
As round our blazing fires we throng,
The starry heavens o’er us;
Impatient for the coming fight,
And as we wait the morning’s light,
Here in the silence of the night,
We’ll chant a soldier’s song.
Chorus:
Soldiers are we, whose lives are pledged to Ireland;
Some have come from a land beyond the wave.
Sworn to be free, No more our ancient sire land
Shall shelter the despot or the slave.
Tonight we man the gap of danger
In Erin’s cause, come woe or weal
‘Mid cannons’ roar and rifles peal,
We’ll chant a soldier’s song.
As with all expressions of sentiment, it is a child of its time, and will undoubtedly be re-visited by the Irish people when the new nation is formed.