Brian O’Higgins published a republican magazine, “The Wolfe Tone Annual” between 1932 and 1962, with a break of one year during the emergency when the censor authorities refused him permission to publish the 1944 annual.
In the issue for 1957, the annual had a special article on “The Flag of Ireland”, in which he suggested that many Irish people did not share his understanding of what the flag symbolised.
They protest against it being left flying after sunset, about how it is flown and how it is carried; but the true significance of the term, Flag of Ireland, never seems to have entered their minds.
Some of those who protest most indignantly against the treatment given to the Flag insult it themselves every day of their lives by sneering at the spiritual and national treasures it symbolises, by ignoring or decrying the Irish language, by playing games that were brought into this country of set purpose to insult and haul down and trample its Flag in the mud of Anglicisation, by shutting their eyes to Irish history and their ears to Irish songs and music, by indulging in foreign pastimes and alien customs and by making no effort to hasten the day of Ireland’s complete freedom from the domination and influence of England. The man who in speech or letter or article attacks the right of Ireland to an independent, a separate national existence … insults the Flag and is a greater enemy than any Sasenach.
(Brian O’Higgins, “The Flag of the Republic”, The Wolfe Tone Annual 1957, pages 64-5)
The Wolfe Tone Annual 1957, cover page.
