In the years before the party system was as solidly formalised as it now is, Unionist MPs took the Conservative whip at Westminster but today the SDLP is the only Northern Irish party which takes the whip of a British party (in its case, Labour). Gradually official Unionists found themselves increasingly challenged by upstarts, which evolved into the formal division between the Ulster Unionist Party (moderate liberal-conservative unionists) and Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party (hardcore conservative unionists).

The decision to start a separate Conservative & Unionist party for Ulster is a curious one, as it can only further split the Unionist vote, already divided between the dominant DUP and the fading UUP. This is at least simpler than in the 1990s and 2000s, when the vote split between these two and smaller Unionist groupings like the UK Unionists, the Progressive Unionist Party, the Ulster Democratic Party, and the Northern Ireland Unionist Party.

My favourite Unionist Party, however, was that which dominated the political scene in the Punjab from the First World War until Partition. It was primarily the instrument of the Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh gentry of the province, and counted three holders of knighthoods — Sardar Sir Sikander Hayat Khan, Sir Fazli Husain, and Rao Bahadur Sir Chhotu Ram — among its founders. Alas, with the increasing enmity between the Hindu and Muslim populations of India, its existence became unsustainable, and even the Punjab Province itself was split between Pakistan and India at independence. Sic transit gloria mundi!

The Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith, London is in danger of closing as its landlord, the local council, is putting the ICC’s building up for sale. The enterprising folk at the Centre have launched the Wear Your Heart for Irish Arts campaign to raise the funds required to save this outpost of Gaelry and have adopted Begley the Bear as the campaign mascot. Begley is a brave little lad and he recently undertook a charity skydive to raise money for the Centre.

Alright, he wasn’t so brave at first, but he worked up the courage in time.

The ICC’s assistant manager, Kelly O’Connor, accompanied Begley on his endeavour.

She had to cover poor Begley’s eyes at the start…

…but then they got into the swing of things.

And at the end of the day, who could say no to a pint of plain?

The first President of Ireland was known as An Craoibhín Aoibhinn — “The Pleasant Little Branch” — or Douglas Hyde to give his proper name. An ancient professor whose upper lip was enhanced by a bushy moustache, Prof. Hyde founded Conradh na Gaeilge, the league for the preservation and promotion of the Irish language whose headquarters on Harcourt Street — sorry, I mean Sráid Fhearchair — are just a few doors down from the birthplace of Edward Carson. The Times of London reported thus on Dr. Hyde’s inauguration day:

In the morning he attended a service in St Patrick’s Cathedral presided over by the [Protestant] Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Gregg. Mr. de Valera and his Ministerial colleagues attended a solemn Votive Mass in the [Catholic] Pro-cathedral, and there were services in the principal Presbyterian and Methodist churches, as well as in the synagogue.

Dr. Hyde was installed formally in Dublin Castle, where the seals of office were handed over by the Chief Justice. Some 200 persons were present, including the heads of the Judiciary and the chief dignitaries of the Churches. After the ceremony President Hyde drove in procession through the beflagged streets. The procession halted for two minutes outside the General Post Office to pay homage to the memory of the men who fell in the Easter Week rebellion of 1916. Large crowds lined the streets from the Castle to the Vice-Regal Lodge and the President was welcomed with bursts of cheering. …

In the evening there was a ceremony in Dublin Castle which was without precedent in Irish history. Mr. and Mrs. de Valera received about 1,500 guests at a reception in honour of the President. The reception was held in St Patrick’s Hall, where the banners of the Knights of St. Patrick are still hung. The attendance included all the members of the Dail and Senate with their ladies, members of the Judiciary and the chiefs of the Civil Service, Dr. Paschal Robinson, the Papal Nuncio at the head of the Diplomatic Corps, several Roman Catholic Bishops, the Primate of All Ireland, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Bishop of Killaloe, the heads of the Presbyterian and Methodist congregations, the Provost and Vice Provost of Trinity College, and the President of the National University.

It was the most colourful event that has been held in Dublin since the inauguration of the new order in Ireland, and the gathering, representing as it did every shade of political, religious, and social opinion in Éire, might be regarded as a microcosm of the new Ireland.

These days much remains the same, though much has also changed. The tradition of Mass and other religious services before the inauguration was dropped in the 1980s when an “inter-faith” service was incorporated into the ceremony itself. Dress remained formal all the way up until the 1997 inauguration of Mary McAleese. The President’s husband, who despised all formal dress, displayed a disgraceful egotism by forbidding them from the ceremony. Gone the morning dress, gone the judges robes and wigs, gone the dignity of the occasion. “Business suits” were the order of the day, and remain so.

Thankfully the ceremony still takes place in St. Patrick’s Hall, the great chamber of the State Apartments in Dublin Castle. Regrettably, in the 1990s the walls of the hall were lined with French silk in a completely inappropriate shade of dark blue. It gives the unfortunate impression of a New Jersey mobster’s dining room to what would otherwise be a very dignified and stately hall. A light shade of Georgian blue would be much more appropriate.

The new president, Michael D. Higgins, is a man of diminutive stature. While one regrets he does not enjoy the correct opinion on most things, he is at least old, and so will bring, one hopes, a certain reflective maturity to the office. The mere sight of him reminds me of my childhood in the 1990s, when the now-President was in the news as culture minister during the ‘Rainbow Coalition’ and the Saw Doctors came out with the song “Michael D. Rockin’ in the Dail for Us”.

The interfaith segment this time was a combination of the truly cringe-worthy and the commendable: an absolute murdering of Be Thou My Vision, prayers and readings from the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, a musical rendering of St Patrick’s Breastplate that I actually enjoyed but which seemed more appropriate for a film soundtrack than this event, the Gospel read by the head of the Methodist Church, including the Beatitudes read out by a panoply of multi-culti figures (e.g. a Sino-Irish schoolgirl, a bare-armed deaf woman, a charming African woman in traditional attire, an American man with emotive enunciation in the style of the Evangelical churches). Then the Lord’s Prayer in Irish, a prayer from the moderator of the Presbyterian Church, another from a Quaker woman, and another from a Coptic priest.

Oh mercy, then the cringe-ometer broke with the singing of Make me a Channel of Your Peace. The mayors in their chains of office were markedly unenthusiastic. A reading from the Koran, and a Muslim prayer, followed by the representative of the Humanist Association of Ireland, who looked like she was on some happy-happy pills, read a statement astounding in its vacuousness. Then a musical interlude. Then Enda Kenny spoke, which is always a trial to sit through. (I admit I watched the ceremony later in the day via RTE Player, so I managed to skip that bit).

Eventually, having passed through this penitential trial, there was the actual inauguration itself. The Chief Justice — robeless, pace old Mr. (now Sen.) McAleese — administered the Oath as Gaeilge, which the new president then signed (above). The necessary exercises having taken place, the Chief Justice then handed over the Seal of the President of Ireland (below).

I’ll admit one of the things I hate is how events these days take place for the photographs. In days of yore, events simply took place. A painting or engraving or drawing could be done later, and everything would look grand, whether it was or it wasn’t. Nowadays, the Chief Justice can’t just hand over the seal to the President, she has to hand it over and everyone looks at the camera and smiles. This will be banned when the Counter-Revolution comes! St. Patrick’s Hall will become like those Transylvanian peasant dance halls, where anyone who smiled was expelled, never to be admitted again.

An tUachtarain then graced us with a few words of wisdom.

Then came the more fun bit: the presidential review of the troops.

One has to appreciate a nice bit of military pomp, especially in the stately courtyard of the Castle.

Finally (below), the President & First Lady greeted a crowd of schoolchildren, many of them waving the blue Presidential Standard, before being driven off to Áras an Uachtaráin, the presidential palace in Phoenix Park.

Well, as I said on Twitter: Best of luck to Michael D. Higgins, Uachtarán na hÉireann. Not my first choice, but hope he does the country proud regardless.

The thrones of the Viceroy and Vicereine of Ireland once sat on a raised dais in St. Patrick’s Hall in Dublin Castle. After dominion status was granted and the Irish Free State was born, the thrones had their crowns knocked off and the Victorian royal cypher removed. The harp of the Irish state arms was embroidered onto the Viceroy’s throne and it was first used as a presidential chair during the inauguration of Prof. Douglas Hyde as the first President of Ireland in 1938. The Vicereine’s throne, meanwhile, was shorn of its gold and is now employed as the chair of the Cathaoirleach, the presiding officer of Seanad Éireann.

The fabric on the thrones was originally a quite elaborate version of the British royal arms, surrounded by shamrocks. I’ll admit that the hodge-podge, two-tone blues of the throne as it is now is a bit jarring, but surely something similar to the original fabric can be commissioned, with the state arms surrounded by shamrocks, and perhaps the addition of the harp to the blank space where the royal cypher once was. Recycle, don’t replace!

William Cecil James Philip John Paul Howard, 8th Earl of Wicklow (styled Viscount Clonmore from his birth until succeeding to the earldom in 1946) was received into the Church at the age of thirty in 1932. Having attended Mass with the family’s Catholic servants, he was banished from visiting the family home on Sundays in addition to being disinherited. He later married the architect Eleanor Butler who served in Seanad Éireann from 1948-1951. Above is one of three photographs of Viscount Clonmore in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

After the postprandial coffee, we head on to Doyle’s but, just as we arrive, Brian gets in touch directing us elsewhere. We meet up with him and his three friends on the street but PH and I do not take a shine to Brian’s temporary entourage and secede from the party. Where to? Lincoln’s Inn, end of Nassau Street.

Should we go through Trinity for a laugh? Why not. Stories of college. Stories of balls. Stories of the boat club. Tales from Pearse Street Garda station. (“I only ended up there twice…”). We get to the pub and come across Anthony and Gav and them, and Eamonn turned up as well, though there we were with pints and it looked like he was drinking water. More banter. Over to the Ginger Man — a crap book but a decent pub. Snuff was taken. PH runs into one of the Trinity Prods and gets an update on this and that. Anto and I have a chat with Maeve. Last orders. Some halfwit complains about religion — “I mean: Gaza, people! Gaza!” — I don’t like the look of him and am about to set him to rights but PH skilfully prevents a boring and pedantic argument by physically directing me onto the street and we move on to the next place.

Which, regrettably, was Fitzsimon’s. No good can be said of the place, so nothing will be said. Some time later, we’re standing in front of Dublin Castle waiting for PH to emerge from his brother’s flat with a bottle of wine. Anto begins to waver. Thinking about calling it a night. This is a sign of his sensibility, which requires immediate counter-manoeuvres. “Ah, go on. You’ll come back to Brian’s for a bit of wine.” Anto remains unconvinced, but just then PH appears and we’re all on our way. We pile into a taxi. The banter with the cab driver turns into a conversation of the impact of mobile technology on the cab trade, with a sidetrack onto the matter of Nigerian immigration.

Oh, right, Brian’s flat. Brian has inexplicably inherited his new flat from a Dublin cell of Italian communists. It is littered with out-of-date issues of Il Manifesto and the refrigerator is decorated with a magnet commemorating the marriage of Andrea and Giulia, 10 Giugno 2009. They couldnt’ve been a particularly secret cell if they left all their ideological remnants littered about the flat. (Perhaps they were actually fascisti and this was a false-flag operation). Brian has added to this collection his own copies of Le Monde Diplomatique and Junge Freiheit, which he reads in the spirit of European brotherhood, alongside the vain hope of trying to pick up French girls. The flat is also inhabited by a Polish doctoral student doing lab work at Trinity in plant biology and who has been soundly slumbering for several hours.

PH decides Kasia has had enough sleep, enters her room, and drags her out of bed. One of the more curious of dispensations made during the Wojtyla era is that Catholics in a state of grace may enter the rooms of female atheist Polish doctoral students if it is in the cause of a good time. (A clarification was later issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith delineating a strict definition of what constitutes a ‘good’ time).

And so Kasia comes out to join our conversation. She exhibits obvious signs of irritation, clearly a feint. From somewhere, a bottle of peach schnapps emerges, but it is not consumed as we had already opened the previously procured bottle of chateauneuf du pape. Anto tries to be serious and discuss matters scientific with Kasia, but PH, Brian, and I join forces against his pretentious spluttering and steer the conversation back towards more enjoyable subjects.

Kasia’s atheism is excoriated and she is accused of witchcraft. We decide to throw her into the Liffey. If she drowns, she was innocent and will go straight to Heaven (which, we understand, is preferable to studying plant biology) but if she survives then her guilt is assured. Perhaps indicative of the level to which even we have been infected by modernity, we all assume she will drown and so no punishment is devised for the eventuality of her survival.

Conversation is continued. Poland is praised. Poland is condemned. Jokes about Senator David Norris are shared. Brian falls asleep, a glass perilously balanced in his right hand perched on the armrest. We begin to make fun of Brian but then remember he is probably the most genial human being on the face of the planet so decide to continue mocking each other instead.

PH, being clever, leaves us to go to sleep in the spare bed. We, however, carry on, unless you count Brian lapsing in and out of sleep, occasionally being forced to agree with some obviously ridiculous statement, to our great merriment and amusement.

What’s that strange light outside? Dawn. The sentiment emerges that the hour has come to call it a night. Kasia heads to her bed. Brian to his. I seize one of the sofas, but Anthony, on account of his greater length, is provided with a duvet and pillow and claims territory on the floor.

The sun is shining when I wake up. Sunday morning — how long will it take to walk to St. Kevin’s? St. Kevin’s is the only place anyone ever goes to Mass to in Dublin (though sometimes I pop into St. Teresa’s off Grafton Street on a weekday). Brian’s old flat was spitting distance from St Kev’s, but the new place is a bit of a trek: a 25-minute walk. We should leave in 10 minutes. Anto, y’comin? Feck off, I’m sleepin in. Five minutes later he’s up and ready and the three of us are out in the refreshing air of a grey Sunday morning.

We reach the Liffey and hail a cab. The driver’s got Padre Pio hanging from the rear-view mirror, provoking PH to relay some brief tales of the saint and encourage us to look up his last Mass, it’s on YouTube. We pass Christ Church, which sparks condemnations of the Protestant Reformation. Dublin has two Protestant cathedrals and no real Catholic one. I point out that the Church of Ireland, tired of the upkeep, actually offered the Catholic Archdiocese its choice of the one or the other — St. Patrick’s or Christ Church — but the Archdiocese turned them down because they wanted to build their own (which, thank God, they still haven’t done). Shock and astonishment is expressed at the Archdiocese’s stupidity, but there is a general confidence that we will get them back eventually.

There’s the place itself, St. Kevin’s, a gothic thing in grey stone. We all four split up without a word and find our own places: Brian in the transept where his father usually is, PH on one side of the aisle, me in the last row on the other, and Anto in the row just in front of me. A large family of daughters process merrily down the aisle and are directed into a pew by their father. A stern-faced man with slicked-back hair, he glances around the church menacingly and has the look of a man you wouldn’t want to cross. A sturdy, behatted old woman genuflects next to me and I shuffle over to give her room to sit. Young children and old men shuffle in and out of confessionals. It’s a sizeable congregation for a bank holiday weekend.

Anto shifts from side to side. The various inhabitants of my head begin taking bets against each other as to whether he’ll keel over or survive the Mass to the end. I sympathise. The last time I was at St. Kevin’s, I was the one in his situation. He seems to stabilise for a moment, then looks left and right, and calmly makes a respectable exit. But he is still around at the end of the Mass, standing at the back. The characters in my head redistribute their finances according to bets taken.

Breakfast. We’re a bit early — the priest’s voice was a little hoarse and the sermon was omitted — so the place isn’t open yet but we’re welcomed in by the manager who sits us down. Brian is despatched to get the Sunday Times as PH whips out ye olde iPad and begins to download the Telegraph and the previous day’s Irish Times. Massive, filling breakfasts enjoyed all around. Various sections of the paper distributed. Not much about David Norris in the Irish edition of the Sunday Times, but we were already aware of the massive hit-piece in the Irish Mail on Sunday, front page story, with a splendid two-page spread, and a column by John Waters as well. Anto shares an amusing photo of Sepp Blatter from one section, and I suggest maybe he should run for president. The prospective Labour candidate is revealed to have been involved in a bizarre cult-like organisation. Thoughts about if the Shinners will put anyone up for the job.

We pay our bill. Anto bids adieu. Wander through Temple Bar and come across what might grandiloquently be described as a bouquiniste in one of the squares. Have a look around — we’re all firm believers in the impossibility of having too many books. Mock a few of the titles on offer. PH points out a Penguin edition of Belloc’s The Path to Rome. Have I read it? No. You should. Right. How much it’s going for? Fiver. Good condition, too. Hmmm… Ah he’ll do it for four, wontcha? The bookseller considers. How about it then, I ask, four euro? Deal. I fiddle about in my pocket and realise I haven’t enough coins. Embarrassed, I whip out a tenner and everyone laughs, but the man smiles and makes out the appropriate change.

Walking through the quiet streets under a grey sky, PH treats us to a reading:

Whatever is buried right into our blood from immemorial habit that we must be certain to do if we are to be fairly happy (of course no grown man or woman can really be very happy for long — but I mean reasonably happy), and, what is more important, decent and secure of our souls.

Thus one should from time to time hunt animals, or at the very least shoot at a mark; one should always drink some kind of fermented liquor with one’s food — and especially deeply upon great feast-days; one should go on the water from time to time; and one should dance on occasions; and one should sing in chorus. For all these things man has done since God put him into a garden and his eyes first became troubled with a soul. Similarly some teacher or ranter or other, whose name I forget, said lately one very wise thing at least, which was that every man should do a little work with his hands. …

Now in the morning Mass you do all that the race needs to do and has done for all these ages where religion was concerned; there you have the sacred and separate Enclosure, the Altar, the Priest in his Vestments, the set ritual, the ancient and hierarchic tongue, and all that your nature cries out for in the matter of worship.

Appropriate for our Sunday morning.

Bank holiday Monday. District court. A dozen gardai mull about, waiting for the start of business. The judge is in chambers, dealing with a few search warrants. The lawyers, well-dressed, mill about. They cut a respectable figure and exude a certain confident eminence. Court officers mull matters of procedure. A large African woman comes into court and looks around slowly. I offer her my seat and she thanks me and sits down, leaving me to lean against a table and ponder the scene before me. Since the new building went up by the park, the Bridewell court is rarely used, and the state arms aren’t even found above the judge’s head anymore. The lady registrar comes over with a little smile on her face and informs me that I will be dealt with first and instructs me on what to do. The judge enters, all rise, he ascends to the presiding chair, and the court commences its business of the day.

Outside, adjacent to the court, is the Bridewell garda station. Great capital letters proclaim from the pediment: FIAT IUSTITIA RUAT CAELUM. I’ve always had a bit of trouble with that epigram. What good is justice if the heavens have fallen? (And again, as Camus said, “I will defend Justice, but I will defend my mother first.”) It really means that some people will tear down the heavens in order to correct some wrong, which is in fact the very antithesis of justice. Sadly appropriate in Ireland, where there have been no shortage of men willing to pull down the edifice of Heaven to exact justice, whatever the cost. And then, strange moments of coming together — like Elizabeth II’s recent visit to the Republic. I made a note in my dagboek that night: Today I saw the Queen of England bow her head before the Children of Lir. That was something I never expected to see ever in my life.

Dublin University was founded with the idea of creating a collegiate university along the Oxford and Cambridge model. The University of Dublin, however, failed to develop along those lines, and so its sole foundation was the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, more commonly known as Trinity College. Strictly speaking, TCD and the university are distinct entities in law, Trinity being the only college of the university.

The university’s arms, granted in the nineteenth century, are blazoned Quarterly azure and ermine. First quarter a book open proper, bound gules, clasped or, and in fourth quarter a castle of two towers argent, flamant proper. Overall in the centre point the harp of Ireland ensigned with the royal crown. The castle with fired towers is a reference to the arms of the city of Dublin. While it is the university, not Trinity College, that awards degrees, the university arms were not used on degree certificates until 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was granted an honorary doctorate of law in St. Patrick’s Hall at Dublin Castle.

Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College uses arms first depicted in 1612; there is no record of a grant, but they were confirmed in 1901. They are blazoned Azure, a Bible closed, clasps to the dexter, between in chief, on a dexter a lion passant, on the sinister a harp, all or, and in base a castle with two towers domed, each surmounted by a banner flotant from the sides, argent, the dexter flag charged with a cross, the sinister with a saltire, gules.

The banner flotant from the tower on the viewer’s left is, of course, the English flag, while that on the right bears the Fitzgerald arms, the red saltire on a white background. These arms were later elevated to the rank of a national emblem, and when the kingdoms of Ireland and Great Britain were joined, the “St. Patrick’s Cross” (as it became known) was added to the Union Jack, where it remains to this day.

Queen’s University of Ireland

Universitas Reginae Hiberniae; Ollscoil an Banríona na hÉireann

In the nineteenth century, the United Kingdom government became concerned about the lack of access to university education in Ireland. Catholics were first admitted to Trinity in 1793, but restrictions of one kind or another remained until 1873. The majority of the Catholic population was still restrained from education at the University of Dublin because the Catholic hierarchy feared allowing Catholic students to be taught in Protestant institutions. The government attempted to respond to Ireland’s lack of universities by founding Queen’s College, Belfast; Queen’s College, Cork; and Queen’s College, Galway, in 1845. These were then made parts of the degree-awarding Queen’s University of Ireland in 1850.

The Queen’s University arms employed a number of emblems. A crown superimposed on the St. Patrick’s Cross emphasised the royal patronage; the open book symbolised learning, while the harp below again represented Ireland.

Queen’s College Cork, Queen’s College Galway, Queen’s College Belfast

Catholic University of Ireland

Universitas Catholica Hiberniae; Ollscoil Chaitliceach na hÉireann

The Catholic population remained wary of the non-sectarian Queen’s Colleges. The church hierarchy felt threatened by the new institutions, banned Catholics from attending them, and in response founded the Catholic University of Ireland in 1854. Five faculties — law, letters, medicine, philosophy, theology — were founded under the rectorship of the famed English divine, Blessed John Henry Newman. The university was intended not solely to serve the Irish but to be a great Catholic university for all of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland. Of the first eight students, two were Irish (one a baronet), two English, two Scottish (including the grandson of a marquis), and two French (one a viscount, the other the son of a countess). They were soon joined by two Belgian princes and a Polish count.

£250,000 was raised from the Irish faithful and other concerned souls, but the Irish bishops were very suspicious of Newman for being English, intellectual, and Protestant-born. Newman left in 1857 and the university tumbled into decline. The bishops, as trustees of the money raised, sent most of the university’s endowment to help fund the 1867 defense of Rome from Garibaldi’s attempt to take the Eternal City. By 1879, the Catholic University of Ireland had only three students enrolled.

The university never adopted arms, but used a vesica-shaped emblem of the Blessed Virgin as Seat of Wisdom.

Royal University of Ireland

Universitas Hiberniae Regium; Ollscoil Ríoga na hÉireann

In 1880, the Royal University of Ireland was founded as a degree-awarding institution whose exams could be taken by any, whether they had attended lectures organised by the university or not. Therefore one could be educated at any place of learning but earn a degree recognised by the civil authorities, unlike the degrees of the Catholic University.

The arms of the Royal University included the shields of the four provinces of Ireland — Leinster, Connacht, Munster, and Ulster — on a counterchanged ermine field, around a crowned open book.

University College, Dublin

Universitas Collegium apud Dublinum; An Coláiste Ollscoile, Baile Átha Cliath

Since the Royal University of Ireland could now award the degrees, the Catholic University refounded its undergraduate division as University College Dublin. From 1880, the college developed successfully, reversing the previous downward spiral. Between 1893 and 1908, the Royal University awarded 708 first class degrees in arts were to UCD students, compared to 486 to students of Belfast, Galway, and Cork combined. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was professor of Greek literature, while the nationalist & revolutionary Eoin MacNeil taught early Irish history. Douglas Hyde, who later served as Ireland’s first president, was professor of Irish, and had for a student Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, also a future president of the republic.

University College Dublin obtained its arms, so far as my research can tell, in 1911. Its central symbol is the obvious Irish emblem of the harp, with the ‘fired’ castle from Dublin’s civic arms flanked in the chief by two shamrocks. Since 2005, UCD moved away from using its coat of arms in favour of a pseudo-heraldic ‘brand mark’ to be used for ‘all UCD visual identity and communications uses’. The coat of arms would continue to be used, however, for ‘ceremonial purposes’ such as degrees, diplomas, certificates, and ‘prestige items’.

The arms are blazoned: Vert a harp or stringed argent, on a chief of the second on a pale azure between two trefoils slipped vert three castles flammant proper.

National University of Ireland

Universitas Hiberniae Nationalis; Ollscoil na hÉireann

The 1908 Irish Universities Act in some ways anticipated educationally the growing separatist tide of Ulster Protestantism. The act dissolved the Royal University and raised the Belfast college to university status while the remaining colleges at Dublin, Galway, and Cork became university colleges of the new National University of Ireland.

Unfortunately I can find little on hand about the origins of NUI’s coat of arms. They are admirable in their simplicity: a Brian Boru harp on a green field, with a shamrock’d star above. The National University of Ireland has followed UCD’s lamentable trend of disregarding its coat of arms for a psuedo-heraldic logo of a gold harp on a funkified shield with the star-and-shamrock moved out, floating above the shield. The new logo is a heraldic anomaly, because removing the star-and-shamrock from the shield makes it identical to the provincial arms of Leinster, thus creating cross-purposes of identification. Is it the National University of Ireland, or of Leinster? One would hope that a learned institution, especially one in a country with a heraldic authority, would be able to avoid such visual confusion.

Queen’s University, Belfast

Universitas Reginae Belfastiae; Ollscoil na Banríona, Béal Feirste

Two years after QUB was established in 1908, it was granted its own arms different from those of its preceding institution, Queen’s College Belfast. The university’s arms are blazoned as: Per saltire azure and argent, on a saltire gules, between in chief an open book and in base a harp both proper, in dexter a hand couped of the third, and in sinister a sea-horse vert gorged with a mural crown of the fourth, an Imperial crown of the last.

The Red Hand of Ulster and the Irish harp are apparent, and the seahorse is used as an emblem representing Belfast. The crown for the royal connection is imposed upon the St Patrick’s Cross, which can also be interpreted as harkening back to the Saltire to represent the Ulster Scots.

University of Limerick

Universitas Limericiensis; Ollscoil Luimnigh

The University of Limerick was first established as the National Institute of Higher Education, Limerick in 1972. It was granted university status in 1989, the same day as Dublin City University. I’m afraid I can’t find much info on the background of this university’s coat of arms. The domed castle in the lower portion is definitely taken from the city’s coat of arms, but the rest of the symbolism — the elk supporting the Tau cross — escapes me.

I can at least tell you the Irish motto of Eagna chun gnímh translates as ‘wisdom in action’.

University of Ulster

Universitas Ultoniae; Ollscoil Uladh

The New University of Ulster was founded in 1968, and later merged with the Ulster Polytechnic in 1984 to become the University of Ulster. A year later, the College of Arms granted this achievement to the institution. The six alternating panels represent the six counties of Northern Ireland. The red hand, again, symbolises Ulster, while the lamp stands for learning. The supporters are an antelope — commemorating the University’s first chancellor, the 4th Duke of Abercorn — and an Irish elk from the provincial arms.

The University of Ulster is one of those unfortunate institutions which severely restricts the use of its coat of arms. The full arms are only to be used by the vice-chancellor’s office, on degree parchments, on external signs, on sanctioned memorabilia, on on plaques. The shield from the arms can also be used on “approved sports kit”. Such restrictions might be appropriate for the use of a seal (which implies university approval, agreement, or acceptance), but coats of arms are badges of identity meant to be more freely used.

Dublin City University

Universitas Urbis Dubliniae; Ollscoil Chathair Bhaile Átha Cliath

Having been granted university status later on the same day as the University of Limerick, Dublin City University is Ireland’s newest university. It has risen in prominence during the decade-long tenure of Prof. Ferdinand von Prondzynski as its president from 2000 to 2010.

It appears that DCU has no coat of arms, but did for some time employ a pseudo-heraldic emblem with the university’s acronym on a blue shield appropriately topped by three castles from Dublin’s civic arms. Prondzynski dumped the dated logo for something a bit more up to date, but if the Chief Herald of Ireland has yet to grant arms to the institution, it is probably for lack of applying.

An example of the ‘Lazarus bling’, more medals than you can shake a stick at.

From the blog of John Smeaton we read that the former Irish president (and genial enemy of all that is good and holy) Mary Robinson has received a ‘knighthood’. Last month she was invested as a Dame in the self-styled ‘Order of St. Lazarus’, a fake order of knighthood. The group claims links to the old Order of St. Lazarus of which the last remnants faded away in the 1780s.

The current ‘Order’ was founded as a fake order of knighthood in 1910 by the confidence trickster Jean-Joseph Moser, and has grown by perhaps surprising leaps and bounds in the past few decades, taking into account P. T. Barnum’s famous maxim about a sucker being born every minute. The group has split into various factions and it has become notorious for having members in its ranks who don more metal “bling” than rap stars or Soviet generals.

The so-called Order of St. Lazarus exists throughout Europe and the Spanish- and English-speaking countries abroad, including the United States. The French branch of St. Lazarus was forced by the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour to cease claiming to be an ‘order’, and members of the Order of Malta are forbidden from participating in St. Lazarus’s activities.

“The Order’s pretensions have been strongly condemned by the Holy See as aiming to replace ‘the legitimate forms of chivalric awards’,” according to Guy Stair Sainty, the acknowledged expert on these somewhat arcane affairs. Nonetheless, Guy points out that “supporters of Saint Lazarus include the heads of a handful of great noble families and, over the years, several leading Churchmen and Cardinals”.

“The Order of Saint Lazarus, although it is to be complimented for its considerable charitable efforts (notably in Germany), need not pretend to an historical continuity to which its claims, at the very least, are unsubstantiated,” Guy Stair Sainty concludes. “Were it to assume the character of a private association, founded in 1910, to emulate the traditions of the ancient crusader Order, it could deflect much of the hostility it has attracted… It would be much more successful and be more readily welcomed into the wider community of international humanitarian bodies, however, if it was to permit an honest appraisal of its origins.”

THE OLD HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT in Dublin are probably at the top of my list of favourite buildings in the world. Now the headquarters of the Bank of Ireland, it has a long and varied history, and its exterior composition is one of surprising unity for a structure the components of which were designed by three architects. It is supposedly the first purpose-built parliament building in the world, and stands on the site of Chichester House, a stately home adapted for use by the Irish Parliament from the 1600s onwards.

The location, with a history dating back centuries, is just south of the Liffey river upon what was then known as Hoggen Green. A nunnery existed on the site which was supressed during Henry VII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries. A large private house was then built on the site, set back from the street, eventually known as Chichester House. (It likely incorporated some of the old convent’s structure). Among the esteemed inhabitants of the house were Sir George Carew, sometime Lord President of Munster, Sir Arthur Chichester, after whom the house was named, and the Anglican Bishop Edward Parry is known to have had a lease on the place during his lifetime.

The building must have been seen as holding some public significance, not only because it was located adjacent to the University of Dublin (of which Trinity College is the sole constituent institution), but it was home to the Irish Law Courts for a time beginning with the Michaelmas legal term of 1605. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, no later than October 1692, the Irish parliament began to meet at Chichester House on College Green.

The first recorded meeting of the Parliament of Ireland was in 1264, making it ostensibly older than the English Parliament if one counts from de Montfort’s Parliament of 1265. (More reasonably, we might count the Oxford Parliament of 1258 as England’s “first”). Admittedly, the Parliament was born out of the extended Anglo-Norman domination of Ireland, and Poynings’ Law of 1494 meant that all acts had to receive approval from England before becoming law. Alongside the Protestant Revolution in England, Protestantism was made the state religion in Ireland. Nonetheless, Irish Catholics were actually allowed to vote for the Irish House of Commons (though not stand for election) and take seats in the Irish House of Lords until they were explicitly banished in 1728.

With growing confidence as an institution, the Parliament of Ireland in 1727 voted to tear down Chichester House and construct what is probably the first purposely-built parliament building in the world. They commissioned one of their own number, Edward Lovett Pearce MP, well known as the leading proponent of Palladian architecture in Ireland. Parliament repaired to the Blue Coat School north of the Liffey while the foundation stone of the new structure was laid on February 3, 1729.

As the eighteenth century proceeded, the Anglo-Irish aristocracy who dominated the Irish Parliament began to seek greater freedom from the British Parliament in Westminster. Through the efforts of the great reformer Henry Grattan, the Parliament of Great Britain was persuaded to allow the repeal of Poynings’ Law in order to appease the growing Irish discontent. With the “Constitution of 1782”, as it was known, Ireland’s legislative independence was restored.

Henry Grattan, towards the right, in the red uniform, addressing parliament.

“I found Ireland on her knees,” Grattan proclaimed. “I watched over her with a paternal solicitude; I have traced her progress from injuries to arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift, spirit of Molyneux, your genius has prevailed! Ireland is now a nation!”

Ireland’s gentry and aristocracy in the Commons and the Lords used their newfound freedom from Britain to adopt a program of moderate, evolutionary reform with the aim of stabilizing the divided nation. Most importantly, by the actions of this Protestant elite the freedom of the Catholic Church was gradually extended. Catholics were once again allowed to vote for the Commons from 1793. In 1795, George III, King of Ireland, exhibited his munificence towards his loyal Roman Catholic subjects by establishing St. Patrick’s College at Maynooth as a Catholic seminary. The land for the college donated by the (Protestant) Duke of Leinster. The seminary continued to be funded by the officially Protestant government until 1869, when the (Anglican) Church of Ireland was disestablished, removing Protestantism as the official state religion.

The façade and dome of Pearce’s original structure.

Pearce’s creation was fronted by an E-shaped Ionic collonade and portico facing what by then became known as College Green. What is somewhat odd, perhaps even off-kilter, about Pearce’s plan is the prominence it gives to the House of Commons, presumably at the expense of the House of Lords. The Commons chamber was on a direct axis with the front entrance while the Lords were pushed off the axis towards the east. This may have reflected the fact that Pearce was himself a member of the Commons, but it is also probable that William Connolly, the powerful Speaker of the House as well as Pearce’s political mentor, played a part in this seemingly inappropriate architectural distinction.

This inbalance is in contrast to the later Houses of Parliament at Westminster designed by Pugin and Barry, in which the Commons and the Lords are given virtually equal distinction in terms of the plan. Somewhat ironically, Pugin’s parliament, which has no real main façade, was designed to look as if it was constructed at different time periods (albeit with the external style all the same), though in reality except for Westminster Hall and some basements and crypts the entire structure was completed by a single architectural duo working at one time. The Irish Parliament building, meanwhile, was constructed by three architects at three different times (though all within the same century) yet has been made to appear as if composed as a whole.

The plan of the building, with the walls of Pearce’s original structure shown in bold, the later additions lighter.

The House of Commons chamber was the centrepiece of the interior. It was octagonal, with the debating chamber divided from the visitors’ gallery by a collonade. Students from neighbouring Trinity College were afforded the right of entry to the gallery if wearing their academic gowns, though the privilege was repealed in 1795 by Speaker Foster.

A painting of the Irish House of Commons assembled in 1780.

Though not short of classical white ornamentation, the Commons chamber retained green for the walls and other decoration and furniture, as the complementary red was used for Lords chamber. Thus began the precedent of daughter parliaments in the Empire and Commonwealth adopting the lower house green and upper house red typical in parliamentary design. (Though it should be noted that the Irish parliament was not a daughter parliament to Westminster, as it was of independent origin).

Alas, the magnificent chamber burned in 1792 and was rebuilt to a different plan in 1796, just a few years before the Act of Union.

An incorrect colourisation of a print of the last meeting of the Irish Parliament.

On a side note, a Cusack once held the office of Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, though Sir Thomas Cusack (previously a Justice and afterwards Master of the Rolls) was elected to the position in 1541, long before the body occupied Chichester House and its procedent. (Sir Thomas was shamefully deeply involved in implementing Henry’s Dissolution of the Monasteries in Ireland).

The Lords chamber for the Peerage of Ireland, like the Commons chamber, featured a coffered ceiling though, unlike the lower house, the ceiling was arched rather than domed. The chamber featured a raised dais in a recessed alcove on one end upon which sat the viceregal throne. The flanking walls of the House of Lords featured, above fireplaces, two tapestries by John van Beaver depicting William III’s victory at the Battle of the Boyne.

The Parliament House was joined on College Green by the West Front of Trinity College, constructed between 1752 and 1759. The construction of the West Front as well as the Dining Hall, Chapel, and othe structures behind it were lavishly funded by the Parliament. The result was that Trinity College in Dublin had buildings grander than any Oxford or Cambridge college of the day.

Like other prominent Dublin buildings of the age, Parliament House featured statuary by the sculptor Edward Smyth. At the summit of the façade’s central pediment was Hibernia, the allegorical personification of Ireland using the country’s Latin name. Hibernia was joined at the western base of the pediment by Fidelity, with Commerce completing the triumvirate on the eastern base.

The Lords desired an extension of their wing providing for a more suitable and exclusive entrance portico, and they commissioned noted Dublin architect James Gandon to design the eastern extension in 1785. Another extension, designed by Robert Parke in 1787, was added on the west side with a complementary portico built on a somewhat smaller scale.

The building, however, was not quite complete until the great sweeping curved walls which lend so much drama to the august building’s exterior were added. Gandon had built a curved plain curtain wall to cover up the awkwardness of how his extension met Pearce’s original building. Parke linked his structure’s frontage to Pearce’s by means of an ionic collonade. The result was generally deemed unattractive, and so both Parke’s collonade and Gandon’s plain curtain wall were replaced with matching curtain walls featuring Ionic columns with intervening niches.

This aerial photo shows the haphazard nature of the building’s interior plan, masked by the curved curtain walls flanking the main façade.

With the Parliament’s freedom, Dublin once again became a city of great importance instead of a mere administrative backwater. Merchants and the aristocracy built grand houses in and around the city to participate in the social season. Between January and St. Patrick’s Day in March, the Viceroy of Ireland presided over state balls in the Viceregal Apartments of Dublin Castle, coinciding (for the most part) with the parliamentary session.

Ireland’s golden age, however, was not to last long. Alongside the process of Ireland regaining legislative independence, the horrors of the Revolution were regnant across the sea in France, and the revolutionary regime there attempted to export its evil ideology. In 1798, the Society of the United Irishmen, a radicalized band of angry reformers, launched a violent republican revolution inspired by the French. The rebellion was eventually suppressed but its widespread nature spread alarm at the state of affairs in Ireland. In the backlash, the British government was convinced that the only solution was the union of Great Britain and Ireland, along similar lines as the Union of Scotland and England in 1707. The initial attempt to get the Irish parliament to abolish itself and agree to union with Great Britain failed, but after a massive campaign of bribery and inducements, the Act of Union was passed in 1800. On January 1, 1801, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland joined, and the United Kingdom was born.

The old Houses of Parliament were sold to the Bank of Ireland, on the sole condition that it not be used for political purposes. Accordingly, the House of Commons was demolished and replaced with a banking hall.

The Lords chamber, however, escaped harm by being assigned a new use as the Bank of Ireland’s boardroom. The above photograph was taken during this usage.

Two hundred years the building is still in the hands of the Bank of Ireland. The House of Lords chamber is open to the public during normal business hours. Inside the mostly-restored chamber is the woolsack on which the Lord Chancellor of Ireland once sat, as well as the mace of the Irish House of Commons, unused by today’s Dail Éireann, thanks to the republican reluctance to recall Ireland’s monarchic past.

The Bank of Ireland is a fine building and it’s Ireland’s loss that it no longer houses the nation’s parliament. The misguided would say that it’s Ireland’s loss that it is no longer part of the United Kingdom, but, numerous other considerations aside, both countries have reached such low ebbs in the history of parliamentary government that it’s hard to justify that. Perhaps with a tinge of irony, the Oireachtas na hÉireann (Ireland’s current parliament) sits in Leinster House, itself built as a home for the Duke of Leinster – a member of Ireland’s House of Lords.

WHEN BRITAIN FINALLY granted dominion status to Ireland, her longest-held possession, in the 1920s it unfortunately also signalled the end to a long tradition of Irish service in H.M. Forces. Well, this is not entirely true — thousands of Irishmen from both Ulster and the Republic continue to volunteer for the Army, Royal Navy, and RAF (the Royal Irish Regiment and the Irish Guards receiving the lion’s share) with an exemplary record of service to the Crown. But numerous other regiments with long lineages rolled up their colours in a dramatic ceremony at Windsor Castle in 1922. (An aside: one of those five regiments was the Connaught Rangers whose former name — the 88th Regiment of Foot — inspired the later re-designation of a New York Guard unit as the 88th Brigade NYG, of which yours truly is a veteran and my uncle the former commander).

The forces which became the Irish Free State Army, given their irregular nature, lacked a ceremonial tradition (though, had I been around and Michael Collins invited me to do so, I would’ve happily manned the desk in the IRA Office of Protocol, Ceremony, and Feathery Hats). In 1932, Dublin hosted the International Eucharistic Congress — a big event in those days, sadly reduced in stature — which meant that dignitaries of great importance would take this opportunity to visit the Irish capital.

And so, the Mounted Escort was formed in 1932 to escort the Papal Legate during the Eucharistic Congress, but given the colour and cut of their uniforms, they quickly acquired the nickname of ‘the Blue Hussars’. Originally, the artist Seán Keating headed up a committee to design a uniform in a suitably modern-but-Celtic style, as was the general artistic bent of the Irish state at the time. Keating’s design called for a saffron léine tunic with six rows of black braid, black cuffs, a blue brat cloak, pantaloons, and a black Balmoral bonnet with saffron feather.

The Army decided not to go with Keating’s proposal but instead adopted the uniform of the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars: blue tunic & breeches, yellow frogging & lace, and black sealskin busby with yellow-orange plume. The only difference was that the 8th used dark blue, while the Blue Hussars went for a sapphire blue. Rumour at the time was that when the unit was being formed, a bunch of 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars uniforms were discovered in a closet in Dublin Castle and it was decided to use them, but record actually exists of the purchase of seventy uniforms for the Mounted Escorts.

Ireland adopted a new constitution that introduced a presidency and reduced the role of the King of Ireland to the very barest essentials of the head of state: signing the letters of credence accrediting Irish ambassadors to foreign states, and signing international treaties on Ireland’s behalf. Almost all other duties that a head of state might have were transferred to a new President who fulfilled the internal role while the King maintained the external role. (Furthermore, the ‘Irish Free State’ was abolished and ‘Éire’ was born). Professor Douglas Hyde, the Protestant founder of Conradh na Gaeilge, was selected as the first President of Ireland and inaugurated at Dublin Castle in June, 1938. From that time, the Blue Hussars became the Mounted Escort to the President of Ireland.

When President Hyde retired in 1945, he was succeeded by Seán T. O’Kelly, who was escorted to his inauguration in an open landau through the streets of Dublin. In 1947, the government of Taoiseach Éamon de Valera (boo! hiss!) abandoned the use of carriages by the President after a carriage accident at the Dublin Horse Show (whose official patron, incidentally, was still H.M. the King of Ireland). The following year, under the Inter-Party Government, the Blue Hussars were abolished altogether, as it was decided to shift to motorcycles under the ridiculous excuse from the Ministry of Defence that they would be more impressive than horses. It was also widely used as an excuse that there was a lack of suitable horses — in Ireland! And so, after the Republic of Ireland was proclaimed in 1949, the heads of state of Great Britain and France continued to enjoy escorts of Irish horses while Ireland made do with foreign-built motorcycles.

2 Cavalry Squadron, the Army motorcycle unit which now escorts the President of Ireland, has inherited the nickname of the Blue Hussars, and in 1997 received blue motorcycles in a nod towards the tradition. It seems shameful though — especially considering that the Irish Army School of Equitation continues to train international-quality horsemen — that the Blue Hussars have not been revived.