THE TWO FLAGS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 40, 29 January 1886, Page 13

THE TWO FLAGS.

When it became known in Dublin that the Nationalists had carried the entire four city Parliamentary Divisions a grand demonstration was got up in honour of the event. Bonfires blazed in the streets and on the adjacent hills, and the old city was illuminated in every quarter. Thousands of nags fluttered from windows and housetops, and conspicuous everywhere was seen the Stars and Stripes blended with the Irish Green. This proceeding has puzzled our English contemporaries sorely. They cannot understand why the American flag should be hoisted in Ireland, or why it should be carried in all processions and demonstrations side by Bide with the National one. But we do. The American flag is an emblem of freedom and independence. No slave exists under its folds. To attain that independence a I nation's blood was shed, and to sever the last bond of slavery ia the i land a million freemen died. Under tbe aegis of that flag English tyranny was stricken down and the freedom of a Continent plucked from its grasp. It was the greatest enemy Britain ever encountered. When the Continental hosts mustered around it, thousands of our Irish fathers stood beneath its shadow, and wherever it was planted, in breach, on fort, or baitlement, there they were found also. So his it been in all our American wars. There is not a battlefield in the Union where the grave of an American is found, but an Irishman* is beside it. In its trials, its struggles, and its tiiumphp, the sons of the Green Isle have always been its allies. They were the sponsors of its baptism, watched ov r it iv its infancy, and love it none the less now, in its vigor and glory. Therefore, it is meet that the two fhgs should be blended together. One during a century has achieved more greatness than any that ever fl mnted its folds before the sun — the other has floated in the breeze for tbr^e thousand years, and though tyranny endeavoured to trample it, might to crush it, and despotism to strangle it, it still lives despit* the treachery, the vindictiveness. and the strength of its foes.— X.V. Tablet.