When a group of French women presented a flag made of the finest silk to three Irish men in Paris some 168 years ago, little did they know that their efforts would symbolise the creation of a new republic.
A new Franco-Irish version of that original Tricolour, which Young Irelander Thomas Francis Meagher subsequently gifted to the citizens of Ireland in April 1848, was presented to Galway City Council on Monday.
Honorary French consul Catherine Gagneux was one of the participants in the project.
She said the project aimed to pay tribute to the men and women of 1916 and the shared revolutionary ideals of France and Ireland.
These ideals had “contributed to the freedom and wellbeing of the men and women of both republics”, she said.
‘Ideals of freedom’
The new patchwork flag also “cherishes the memory of the brave and now-anonymous French women of 1848 who, by their actions provided a wonderful inspiring gift which resonated with the ideals of freedom, solidarity and equality”, she said.
Meagher was in the company of Young Irelanders William Smith O’Brien and Richard O’Gorman when they went to Paris to congratulate the French on overthrowing King Louis Philippe.
Meagher was struck by the three colours used by the women, and said that “the white in the centre signifies a lasting truce between the ‘orange’ and the ‘green’” in Ireland.
Participants with Ms Gagneux in creating the new flag, which is on display in Galway's City Hall, were Róisín McManus of The Quilt Yarn Stitch, Tuam, Co Galway, Margaret Coffey, Fanny Espinosa, Shirley Daly, Mathilde Doyle-Lenoir and Ursula Stephens.
