Banner day for Tricolour

THE Irish tricolour flag is 170 years old as of yesterday.

On March 7, 1848, it was flown for the first time by Thomas Francis Meagher in Waterford.

He said: “The white in the centre signifies a lasting truce between the orange and the green.

“And I trust that beneath its folds, the hands of the Irish Protestant and the Irish Catholic may be clasped in generous and heroic brotherhood.”