"16th Century Irish Flags." Topic

Of possible interest?

From here
link

Hope you enjoy!.

Amicalement
Armand

Brilliant stuff will suit my figure range very well, now you've got the English to do?

And of course there are loads of free 17thC Irish ones here link amongst a lot of English and Scots ones.

Nice work! I sent you an order.
Mark

Brilliant stuff will suit my figure range very well, now you've got the English to do?

Armand didn't make them, he just posted the link.

Nice work! I sent you an order.

I hope you didn't send the order to Armand …

Glad you enjoyed it boys!. (smile).

Amicalement
Armand

No. I actually sent the order to the right place. Thanks for the link Armand.

Hi Sir Marcus,

I keep getting a failure notice when I reply to your email maybe your inbox is full, cheers Pete

…strange. Let's try to connect tomorrow.

A votre service mon ami!.(smile).

Amicalement
Armand

Oh they are very good.

Glad you like them my friend!. (smile).

Amicalement
Armand

thanks for the comments on the flags, here's the link to the first set of English flags link

cheers Pete

Great looking English flags!

I understand that there is some reluctance to accept the red saltire as an authentic Irish flag of the Elilzabethan period because of its later association with the Union Flag and the Irish Blueshirts. Its appearance in contemporary illustrations is sometimes explained (i.e. explained away) as being Scottish or Spanish, but it is hard to understand why Scottish/Spanish flags should be so often depicted in an Irish context to the exclusion of alternative designs.

link

The red saltire also seems to be associated with the later Irish Catholic Confederacy, and if that is authentic, it strongly suggests that it had native Irish legitimacy before that time.

Well I see no sense in advocating its a Scottish saltire, wrong colour and the Scots in Ireland were not there in an official capacity.

Spanish is a maybe, though I cannot recall of any contemporary evidence that flags for the Irish arrived with the Spanish.

It could be an Irish flag, of course we only see it in English images, and not many of those, and there I think is the rub. Hayes McCoy considered the issue and came down in favour of a red cross patee rather than a saltire. Why he did so I cannot recall.

We know the Irish carried captured English flags and that John of Desmond had a Papal banner.

I'm pretty relaxed about Irish heraldic banners though I cannot recall any mention of them being used.

Do we know what the source is for its use in the Catholic Confederate flag?

Hayes-McCoy came down in favour of the cross patee/potent for Irish Confederate flags and was followed by Gush in his Renaissance Warfare. He based his argument on contemporary illustrations and devotes a whole chapter of his book to this question. However he also admits that St Patrick Cross flags also existed at this period. That the former was the official flag of the Confederacy seems clear but this does not necessarily mean it was definitely the canton cross on Confederate Infantry regiments. In The book Confederation of Kilkenny by Meehan there is a repro of a contemporary illustration of the siege of Dungannon by Preston and there appears a miniscule drawing of a regimental flag thereon (first noted by Hollick in his book on Benburb – and best viewed in his enlargement in that book) which seems to show a flag with a canton on which is a diagonal cross.

So you takes your pick. One contemporary list of flags (the Wadding list in Meehan and McCoy) does not mention any cantons at all – and Hayes McCoy's own illustrations shows what these might have looked like – and they are double sided with the flag of the Confederacy on the reverse. Another list (of the same flags, from True Informer) says nothing about being double sided but that they had a cross on a canton but does not tell us what the cross is. Have a look at the Ireland and Montrose Scots (two separate pages) flags by Wargames Designs here: link
to get an idea of the variety possible. My own Confederate regiments retain the Cross Potent but really, nobody knows.

Nor have we any idea how the different company flags were differenced. We know from the numbers of flags captured that each regiment must have had several (company) flags but it is unlikely that the very religious imagery on the flags would have been overlaid by symbols denoting the different companies. I suspect that would have been considered blasphemous.

I've noticed that in Hayes-McCoy's 'Irish Battles' there are some interesting notes about flags in the chapter on Kinsale (Page 172). There seems to be evidence of the Spanish providing the Irish with colours. If O'Neill was accepting Spanish overlordship, the adoption of Spanish flags might be appropriate. Whether the saltire flags were Spanish or Irish, I am less sure whether they were red on white or red on yellow or both. The picture of Kinsale seems to suggest yellow, but the references most often refer to white.

Could the yellow field simply be white paint that has discoloured?

A few Civil War period Scottish regiments had saltire flags with red arms.

The 'picture map' of Kinsale is Plate 13 in 'Irish Battles' and is also reproduced a little larger on the front cover of my (paperback) edition. The central focus appears to show an English pike block being attacked by Irish cavalry. Above the pike block is what looks like a red and white English flag while around it, with the cavalry, are three saltire flags. One is definitely yellow in comparison with the English flag. The others are a bit less distinct but are probably yellow. So I think the saltire flags do have yellow fields and are not just white flags discoloured.

Hayes-McCoy, however, specifically refers to "the red ragged cross of Burgundy on a white field – as shown in the map", which seems at odds with the way they look to me. My understanding is that Spanish flags of this type could be red on white or red on yellow, or, indeed, red on some other colour. I suspect the author described the design with which he was most familiar and didn't realise this was at odds with the picture. On the other hand he was a vexillogist and one wouldn't expect him to make a mistake.

If the flags do indeed show a cross raguly then they are certainly Spanish, but the detail isn't clear enough to see.

The picture hangs (or hung) in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. Ideally someone would take a closer look at it or can find a clearer reproduction!