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Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 130, 3 June 1922, Page 23

We have been hearing a good deal lately about the Irish harp, as we see it on the Royal Standard. But does anyone know why the harp displaced the "crowns of -funster" as the heraldic device of Ireland? asks the "Daily Chronicle." It was Henry Vlll,—the first of our monarehs to call himself "King of Ireland"—who definitely made the change, though no Irish device of any sort appeared on the Royal Standard itself till the reign of .Tames I. Various guesses have been made as to Henry's motive, one being that the three gold crowns on a blue ground might be mistaken for the Pope's triple crown. But the Earl of Northumberland, writing in the 17th century, had a view of his own. He thought the harp was singularly appropriate, since it resembled Ireland "in being such an instrument that it requires more cost to keep it in tune than it is worth."