THE RED HAND.
Tho well-known armorial sign of Ulster —the red hand, sinister, gules, with the monograph O—has been duly appropriated by the Ulster Unionists in their campaign under "General" Carson. The tradition of this sign, which comes from the Gaelic " Lambh Dearg," meaning bloody hand, is somewhat singular. In one of. the very earliest expeditions for the conquest of Ireland it was announced by tho leader of the party that tho first person who touched the land should be lord oi. the territory. When the boats were neariug the shore two took the lead, in ovx> of them there uas an O'Neil, who, fearing that the other boat would land first, seized a hatchet, severed his left hand from the arm and threw it forward on the land. Having thus touched the land first, he became the founder of thnt famdy which gave so many chieftains to Ulster, arid whoso blood is said to inimcle in the veiiui of many lioyai families.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TS19121031.2.21
Bibliographic details
Star (Christchurch), Issue 10606, 31 October 1912, Page 2
Word Count
163THE RED HAND. Star (Christchurch), Issue 10606, 31 October 1912, Page 2
Using This Item
Star Media Company Ltd is the copyright owner for the Star (Christchurch). You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Star Media. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in