Bratacha na hÉireann: The Flags of Ireland

From the tricolour first raised in Waterford in 1848 to the county colours at every GAA match, Ireland flies flags for its nation, its four provinces and all 32 counties. Here is what they mean, and where to download every one for free.

Walk into any GAA ground on a championship Sunday and you'll see Ireland's flags at every level at once. The tricolour flies over the stand. On the terraces the county colours are everywhere: the green and gold of Kerry, the black and amber of Kilkenny, the white and blue of the Déise. And on provincial final day, out come the flags of Munster, Leinster, Ulster or Connacht.

Nation, province and county. Here's what each flag means, and where you can download every one of them for free.

The tricolour: Bratach na hÉireann

The national flag is green, white and orange in three equal vertical stripes, with the green nearest the flagpole. It's twice as long as it is high. In Irish it's Bratach na hÉireann, "the flag of Ireland", or simply an Trídhathach, "the tricolour".

The colours carry a message. The green stands for the Gaelic, nationalist tradition and the orange for the followers of William of Orange. Thomas Francis Meagher, who first flew it, said the white between them signified "a lasting truce between the Orange and the Green".

Meagher raised it in public for the first time in Waterford, on 7 March 1848. The Constitution of 1937 made it the national flag.

Why a province is a "fifth"

The Irish word for a province is cúige, and it literally means a fifth. Ireland once had five provinces. The fifth was Mide, the royal province around Tara, which was later mostly folded into Leinster. Four provinces remain, but the word never changed.

The four provincial flags

• Ulster (Cúige Uladh). A red cross on gold, from the arms of the de Burgh Earls of Ulster, with the Red Hand of the O'Neills on a white shield. Legend says two chieftains raced by boat for the land, and whichever hand touched the shore first would win it. One of them cut off his own hand and threw it ahead. This is the flag of the nine-county province, the one you'll see at GAA matches. It isn't the "Ulster Banner".
• Munster (Cúige Mumhan). Three gold crowns on blue. They're often said to stand for the old kingdoms of Desmond, Thomond and Ormond, though nobody is quite sure where the emblem comes from.
• Leinster (Cúige Laighean). A gold harp on green. The harp is Ireland's oldest national emblem, and Irish forces were flying a green flag with a harp on it from the 1640s.
• Connacht (Cúige Chonnacht). Split down the middle, with half a black eagle on white and an arm in a white sleeve holding a sword on blue. Where the design comes from is still debated.

County colours: the flags people actually fly

This surprises a lot of people, but Irish counties don't have official flags. The flags you see everywhere are the GAA county colours, and every county has them, from Antrim's saffron and white to Wexford's purple and gold.

Plenty of counties share colours, though. Kerry, Meath, Leitrim and Donegal are all green and gold. So each county flag on Love Irish comes two ways: plain, just as it's flown, or with the county's name in Irish across the middle. The names are well worth knowing:

Download them free

You can download all of them for free: the tricolour, the four provinces and all 32 counties, as a high-resolution PNG or a scalable SVG. They're ready for the classroom, the match, a school project or St Patrick's Day, and each one comes with its name in Irish and a button to hear it said.

Browse and download the flags →

Bain sult astu! Enjoy them.