Athletics I’d say, the flags are only ever raised for drivers in F1 and no driver from the Republic has won a race (Amhrán na bhFiann did get played a few times for Jordan wins alright as winning constructor)
The tricolour these days almost always has orange (as it officially should be) but interesting that in the eighties and nineties gold was used a lot instead. That one looks like a kind of in-between colour.
Mate I’m the one defending Amhrán na bhFiann here. Lisa Lambe has given a couple of powerful renditions before our games against France and the Netherlands in this campaign. Of course a female singer rousing the crowd with Amhrán na bhFiann evokes memories of Nadia Forde before the Sweden game in 2013 (iirc).
Back in the 1980s the major divide in Irish society was between those who believed the Irish flag was green, white and orange and those who believed it was green, white and gold. It was very similar to how you were either on Roy Keane’s side or Mick McCarthy’s side, or whether you preferred Heinz beans or Batchelor’s beans, or Heinz or Chef red sauce (the correct term is red sauce, not ketchup).
There were only two types of families for the first 50 years or so of this state. There were Fianna Fail families and there were Fine Gael families. This started to blur around the 1970s when you started to get mixed marriages, and my parents’ one was a mixed one. My general feeling was that traditionally Fine Gael families said green, white and orange and that traditionally Fianna Fail families said green, white and gold.
My primary school teacher told us the Irish flag was green, white and gold. He was a Fianna Failer. That made sense.
My granny told us it was green, white and gold and therefore my Mam said similar. But that didn’t make sense. Because my Mam’s family was a Fine Gael family.
And things made even less sense at least in terms of political orientation towards one flag shade or another when my oul’ fella, who was from a Fianna Fail family (he was not necessarily always a Fianna Fail voter, though never a Fine Gael voter), firmly put his foot down on the subject and told us the definitive truth. Don’t listen to what those dimwits say. The Irish flag is green, white and orange.
He explained the meaning thoroughly and it made sense to me. He was very firm in this. He told me the other lot were peddling fools’ gold and were liars and deluded. Had the INTERNET been around in 1985-1987 I believe he would have spent days online schooling people about this.
And sure enough, when I asked my granny or my teacher why the Irish flag was green, white and gold, they could not tell me. They were stumped. There was even another primary school teacher in charge of my brother’s class who who told him the Irish flag was green, white and yellow. These people hadn’t a clue.
All this thoroughly persuaded me that the Irish flag was green, white and orange. And within a few years, the green, white and gold side were thoroughly routed, as they deserved to be.
Weirdly I’ve never heard AnF sung properly at a GAA match. Gently mumbled is the usual vibe. It’s properly belted out at soccer and rugby internationals though
As someone who despises FG i always said orange. Based on the true symbolism of the tri colour green catholic, orange for prods and white in-between for peace.
Your father was correct, the colours are stated in the Constitution so there isn’t really any debate on what they are. Of course people are free to opine on what they think they should be.
Green and gold is very common combo in GGA, so it may stem from that. Also, the orange on a flag often fades over time and takes on a more golden hue. There’s obviously no question that orange is the proper colour, no debate needed.
The irony in all this of course is that tricolour is not used for all-island sides despite the fact that the whole point of the flag is to promote exactly that kind of unity. We will probably have to lose the tricolour as part of eventually achieving unity despite it being the most basic symbol of it.