45-Star US Flag & Irish Flag (pre-Independence) - EMBOSSED & GILDED harp, eagle

Description

45-Star US Flag & Irish Flag (pre-Independence) - EMBOSSED & GILDED: EMBOSSED & GILDED: This Undivided Back Era (1901-07) embossed and gilded postcard shows the crossed flags of the United States and Ireland. The US flag has 45-stars, with Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii yet to be admitted to the union. The Irish flag pre-dates the tri-color flag currently in use there. The Society of United Irishmen, a republican movement which emerged in the 1790s, used a gold harp on a green field (the 'Green Flag'). This flag was carried in the rebellions of 1798 and 1803 and it quickly achieved popular acceptance as the national flag. The flag was used during the widespread peaceful agitations for 'Repeal' of the act of union in the 1830s and 1840s but was viewed as a seditious emblem by the British authorities. In 1848 the Repeal movement split and the radical wing (known as 'Young Ireland') adopted both republican ideas and a tricolor inspired by that of the second French republic. The Young Ireland rebellion of 1848 was quite a small affair and the tricolor flag was largely forgotten until the twentieth century. The next revolutionary movement, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (or 'Fenians') of the 1860s, was much more formidable and it reverted to using the Green Flag. That flag was also used by all the nationalist politicians who campaigned for 'Home Rule' (devolved government within the United Kingdom). By about 1880 or so the Green Flag had become officially tolerated to the extent that one was no longer likely to be arrested for displaying it, but it never had any official status and was always seen as a nationalist emblem. The card is in good condition, but shows some edge wear and a faint crease in the card's upper right hand corner.