Children of Lir flag (Republic of Ireland)

This post is my part on an interesting thread. The Vexillology Ireland (VIBE) [alternate website] on its Facebook page, make a challenge to design a flag for the president of Republic of Ireland having a reference to the tale of the Children of Lir (actually considered in early 1940s, the reason is in the Facebook post).

The challenge was actually proposed in August 2013, and, although I had read it at the time, wasn't inclined to make one design by myself. Reading a post by Samuel McKittrick, decided to make a design by myself.

A very summarized plot of the tale is the following (not sure if correct):

Bodb Derg was elected king of Tuatha Dé Danann, with the discordance of Lir (sea god). To pacify Lir, Bod's daughter Aoibh married with him, and the couple had four children. Following the death of Aoibh, that made the children very melancholy, Lir married another Bodb's daughter, Aoife. The jealous Aoife tried to kill the children, but could only manage to transform them in swans. Knowing it, Bodb transformed Aoife in an air demon.

Below, you can see six designs: the three on top, by Zachary Harden, was found on original Facebook page, while the bottom three were took from Samuel McKittrick's post.
My unofficial contribution to this challenge is the following:


I really don't believe that this kind of design could have been considered in early 1940s, but I like it nonetheless. On center, there's the coat of arms of Republic of Ireland, a sign of president's headship of state. The four swans, as placed, remember heraldic supporters, on a curious effect.

Your comments are welcome.
Zachary Harden's designs can be found here, with Samuel McKittrick's proposals can be found here.

Pan-celticism

A thread on Flags Forum gave me the idea to resurrect an old sketch I made to represent the Celtic League but de facto all the pan-Celtic movement i.e. the supporter to bigger contact between the "Celtic nations".

There isn't an official pan-Celtic, but two flags are most commonly used. This is the most popular:

This flag is made with the amalgamation of flags of seven Celtic nations, from top left, in clockwise direction: Galicia, Ireland (in this case, not only the Republic of Ireland, but in a pan-Irish context), Scotland, Cornwall, Isle of Man, Wales and Brittany. Other common variant have only the six original celtic nations, removing Galicia. In the center, a triskelion, a motif common in celtic art.

The other one is a proposal by Robert Berthelier in the 1950s:

This flag have green and golden yellow colors, commonly associated with the Celts, and two conjoined triskelions (in the style of a celtic knot), representing three Gaelic peoples - Scot, Irish and Manx - and three Brittonic peoples - Welsh, Cornish and Breton.

The sketch that I had (as said in first paragraph) is heavily influenced by Andrew Boada's amazing "Irish Celtic Cross". Here is it:

This flag has the same colors of the Berthelier's proposal, with the addition of white. It represents a Celtic cross, but touching the borders instead of square as the latter is used by Neo-Nazis. I like how this flag is simple and vivid. But, to avoid any misconception, I made the reference to celtic flag much more subtle on my next proposal:

It's very much like the anterior flag, with the exception that a white triskelion was added on the center of the flag.

As you can see, the designs don't have any very original approach, but I think them may work well.

Your comments are always welcome.

I've been making the last posts trying to fix the issue of multiple blank lines, specially on cell phones. Comment if it still appear on your browser.

Ulster (Republic of Ireland)

Samuel McKittrick, in his personal blog, noticed an interesting issue: the use by Ulster flag by the counties of Republic of Ireland that constituted the historical province of Ulster. What's the big question? Republic of Ireland only holds three of Ulster nine counties (the other six counties are in United Kingdom's Northern Ireland). Why not a special flag to denote the three counties (Donegal, Monaghan, Cavan) have different statuses.

Firstly, let's see the Ulster flag:

Samuel's proposal is the next (see description on his post):

What are the constituents of Ulster flag, that can be seen in both flags: the red hand (from the coat of arms of O'Neill dynasty) and the red cross on golden field (from the House of Burke). The O'Neill were kings of Ulster, and the Burke (or Burgh) were earls of Ulster.

Sam's proposal is good, but maybe yellow and white could be confused on sunlight. I chose the cross as the main element of my flag proposal. The red hand couldn't be out, but I used it like the fleur-de-lis on Quebec flag. The result was this:

It's not 100%,  but it can be used without problems.

Your comment is welcome. Thank you for reading.
The series I promised last week isn't done, but soon it'll be published.