Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business, that No. 25, motion No. 10, be taken before No. 1. The motion reads: "That Seanad Éireann endorses the protocol governing the national Flag on this the 165th anniversary of the displaying of the Irish Flag for the first time by Thomas Francis Meagher at 33 the Mall in Waterford City on March 7th 1848". We are lucky enough to have the great-great grandson of Brigadier General Thomas Francis Meagher, the man who created the Irish flag, in the House today. The flag of the Irish Brigade which John F. Kennedy presented to the House when he addressed the Dáil in 1963 hangs at the foot of the stairs leading to the Seanad Chamber. He spoke about Brigadier General Thomas Francis Meagher who, like the Leader of the House, was from Waterford and a truly extraordinary man. He came back from France in 1848 with two good ideas - one for a flag for which he borrowed from the design of the French flag, and the second for a revolution which did not work out so well. He was involved in the battle in Ballingarry and put on trial in Clonmel for high treason. Before passing sentence, the judge asked him whether he had anything to say, to which he replied, "Your Honour, if you do not sentence me to death, I will try again." He was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to transportation to Australia for life. When he was in Richmond Prison, just half a mile from this building, he wrote a famous letter in which he said, "Never was their country so utterly downcast, so pitiful, so spiritless. Yet I do not, could not, despair of her regeneration. Nations do not die in a day. Their lives are reckoned by generations, and they encompass centuries. Their vitality is inextinguishable."