CHAPTER L.
ORANGE AND GREEN; OR, HURLING AND SHOOTING.
SYNOPSIS:— Origin of "Orange and Green" Described. —Hurling Matches. —The First Orange Riot. —A Day of Terror. —Shooting at O'Shanassy. —The First Historic Sixpences. —The Mayor on the Gridiron. —Explanation by the Mayor. —The Party Processions Act.
Irish Colour-Blindness.
ONE of the most inexplicable and amusing anomalies of history is disclosed by the manner in which two sections of the Irish people not only transfuse, but absolutely transpose, the colours of orange and green in national and partisan celebrations—the Northerns adopting the orange as their cognizance, and the Southerns the green; whereas originally, so far from there existing any traditional affinity in such a selection, the reverse was really the case. By the term "Northerns" is meant the far from insignificant faction known as Orangemen, who recognize in William the Third, the Apostle of their Fanaticism, and in the others are included the large numerical majority of the Irish race, who cherish the green flag with as much devotion as if the colour had been transmitted as a National emblem from the era of the Fer-bolgs. The facts in reality may be thus succinctly epitomised. Green was never the adopted colour of the Irish, supposing such a phrase to signify its acceptance as the tinge of the Standard under which the Irish armies fought in their own country, during, and subsequent to, the existence of its nationality. In the earliest ages of which we have any record, the Irish National escutcheon appears to have been the "Sunburst," i.e., an aureoled sun, springing evidently from the sun-worship which illumined the wanderings of the Phoenicians, accompanied them to Hibernia, and constituted a portion of the Paganism prevalent there on the arrival of St. Patrick. This emblazonry continued for ages. In the battles of Finn-Mac-Cumhal—Anglice Fingal—the Royal Ensign was known as "the Sunbeam," and so styled on account of its bright colour, and being starred with gold. Ossian, in singing one of the Fingal battles, depicts the Standard of the king, as "studded with gold above as the blue, wide shell of the nightly sky." In narrating the Irish events of the seventh century, one of the bardic historians makes special reference to the Standard of St. Columbkille, as "a variegated, streaming, floating, star-bright, consecrated satin banner," a sort of subdued "Sunburst." Some years ago there was printed, under the authority of the Irish Archaeological Society, an ancient historical tale translated by the great Celtic scholar, John O'Donovan. It is in prose and verse in two parts, the second division being devoted to an elaborate and inflated sketch of the Battle of Magh Rath, or Moira, in 637, which is declared to be "the most famous ever fought in Ireland." The writer is tediously picturesque in many of the details, and he particularizes the following as the Standards unfurled by the Hibernian Septs engaged in mortal conflict on that memorable day, viz.:— A yellow lion on green satin; dun-coloured Standards like fire; streaked satin, blue and white; yellow and red; black and red; yellow; white. Here are seven distinct kinds of military emblems in which red, white, and yellow predominate, and there is not even one of them entirely green.
But it was not only as belligerents that the Irish affected the yellow or orange colour, for it was a special favourite even in their wearing apparel, and the hue that stirs up the blood of a modern Milesian in something of the same degree as a yard of red flannel would a wild bull, was for generations the every-day companion of the people, for the Irish (male and female) were en masse an
