World Cup is the Time to Reclaim the Irish Tricolour From Sinister Groups

Were you there when buildings got dressed up for the Ireland men’s soccer team? Match days back in the early 1990s saw housing estates transform into a Met Gala of flags, bunting, and banners; our collective favorite color became a three-way split between green, white, and orange. I remember the cardboard images of the players’ faces that could be applied to living room windows via suction cups, these footballers’ frozen mugs smiling at passers by. My primary school allowed kids to leave a little bit early to make it home for 3pm kick offs. To watch was your national duty.

The country has never been as connected to the men’s team as it was during that era. The parade to welcome home the side that reached the quarter finals of World Cup Italia ’90 attracted almost half a million people. The gathering after the 1994 tournament may have been only about half of that figure, present to see a grumbling Jack Charlton, who needed to be persuaded to make a quick round trip from the US, so he could return in time to work as an ITV pundit. There’s been a few tournament appearances for us since; a clutch of great moments to add to RTÉ’s Irish soccer highlight reels forever more. But the bunting—the bunting—has never been as prominent. Like men in dinner jackets, seeing houses dress up is increasingly rare.

Tomorrow morning is the perfect chance for rediscovery. At 11am, the Ireland women’s team makes their inaugural World Cup appearance against tournament hosts Australia. Drape your homes in whatever appropriate decorations you can find. Let there be miniature flags for all. Run, do not walk, to your local euro shop and snatch up everything of a greenish hue. Because in doing so, you won’t just be supporting our footballers, you’ll be helping to reclaim the Irish tricolor from wicked sects who have co-opted it for their own twisted ideology, seeking to turn the flag into an emblem of division among you and your neighbor.

We can be funny about national flags. Among their earliest uses was to identify armies in the field, so soldiers didn’t get confused about who they were supposed to butcher. With humanity’s insistence on establishing borders on the planet, flags have come to denote countries—they’re easy to recognize symbols that transcend language barriers. In that way, flags are entirely functional, yet we give them almost sacred importance. To burn your nation’s banner is, in many people’s minds, to commit an act of heresy.

Flags are also powerful symbols of nationalist pride, particularly in countries, like this one, that have experienced colonial struggle. But they also tend to be co-opted by the worst kind of people: ethno-nationalists, white supremacists, far-right insurrectionists, all claiming that their bigotry is actually patriotism. Such groups have become more visible in Ireland in recent months, slithering the streets, or assembling outside refugee shelters. I don’t mind admitting that it upsets me to see rallies go past my flat of people carrying the Irish flag alongside their sick banners (“Sinn Féin: Brits Out, Everyone Else in”, ugh).

It’s natural that the political right would want to seize such a symbol. It’s they who see the enforcement of borders as being crucial to maintaining their sense of self. Drift further right still and you’ll find those who deem antique bloodlines as something they must preserve, as though Irishness is defined by those who can trace their roots back to the days of Bodb Derg. When I see the Irish flag these days, whether in person or in an online bio, my mind often wonders if they’re pushing an agenda abhorrent to me.

There are some blessed exceptions. Irish rappers, many of them African immigrants or their children, commonly use it as a signifier of an island-wide scene they are proud to represent, even with many of their fans in the UK. This includes waving the flag in their videos or including it in their YouTube title. When Reggie draped himself in the tricolor for “My Accent,” the best Irish rap song of 2020, it felt like a moment of pure, uncomplicated patriotism, igniting a sense of national pride in what he and other artists are achieving in Ireland’s name.

Sport, too, can evoke such feelings. But sport can also be viewed as a battleground to people who wish to shut out those they don’t wish to share their identity with. Black players playing for England have been racial abused online and while playing in other European countries; Arab players representing Israel face animosity from sections of their fans. In Ireland, the chatter is mostly confined to the internet, with any story or post about people of color’s excellence across multiple sports seemingly bombarded with derogatory comments.

Neither sport nor the arts can alone cure these ills in a society. But the World Cup is upon us, and it’s something to look forward to. This admirable Ireland team provide a chance to rouse a sense of collective pride not gummed together by fear-mongering or othering. So hang the Irish flag high and prominently; block out the light from your living room with the most garish decorations you can find. You’ll be doing more than just supporting the women wearing the green jersey.

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