Some great links Jo! Thanks for those. The one about the flags was particularly interesting. I'm glad that they mentioned the inappropriate use of 'St. Patrick's' flag. This flag is not flown anywhere in Ireland as it is quite rightly not recognised. At the time of the 1916 rising the adopted flag was the 'plough and the stars' - what Americans would know as the 'big dipper'. Sean O'Casey used this as a title for one of his most famous plays about his contemporary Dublin. The current tricolour consists of Green for nationalism (or Catholics), Orange for Unionism (or Protestants) and white for peace or neutrality. Optimistic, huh?

It seems a bit ominous that you picked the link below:

http://inac.org/history/partition.html

This is the official website of Sinn Féin - the political wing of the IRA. INAC stands for the Irish National Ard Comhairle. They may have declared a ceasefire and they may be in government in NI but you will certainly never see me vote for them. Catch the most senior figures at: http://inac.org/history/peace.html

The first is president of Sinn Féin, the second the Minister for Education in the Devolved parliament and the third the first Sinn Féin member of Dáil Eireann since 1980. Martin McGuinness also used to be the commander of the IRA though he denies this strongly (as Sinn Féin tends to do quite often when asked about terrorist offences).

Enough politicking....

An interesting article in last week's Irish Times is a tongue-in-cheek view of the way that most foreigners perceive recent Irish history - especially Hollywood.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2000/0608/opt4.htm

Rubrick