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THE IRISH FLAG is 95 years old this year. Officially, that is.
The flag was first adopted in 1919, having been gifted to Young Irelanders leader Thomas Francis Meagher in 1848 by a group of French women. Its constitutional status was enshrined in 1937.
Despite its storied place in Irish culture, there are very few flown from homes and not all state buildings are required to fly it.
But if you were to fly one, what would the correct way to do it be?
Colour
Ok, first things first. The flag is green, white and orange. Yellow or gold is occasionally used, but guidelines from the Department of the Taoiseach say that this ‘destroys the intended symbolism’.
The exact Pantone system colours are: PMS 347, White and PMS 151. The flag should be divided into three rectangular sections of equal size and should be twice as long as it is high.
Display
When displaying the flag, no flag should fly higher than the National Flag and it should be placed on the right of any formation, that is to the observers left.
When being flown with the EU flag, the EU flag should go immediately bedside the Irish flag.
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Things not to do
Funny, but a no-no
The main things to remember when handling a flag are: don’t write on it and don’t let it hit the ground.
Says the guidelines:
“The National Flag should never be defaced by placing slogans, logos, lettering or pictures of any kind on it, for example at sporting events.
“The National Flag should not be draped on cars, trains, boats or other modes of transport; it should not be carried flat, but should always be carried aloft and free, except when used to drape a coffin; on such an occasion, the green should be at the head of the coffin.
“Care should be taken at all times to ensure that the National Flag does not touch the ground, trail in water or become entangled in trees or other obstacles.”
Who flies the flag?
Nobody is required to fly the flag, says the Department of the Taoiseach’s protocol department.
“There is no requirement on any building to fly the National Flag, but where one is usually flown, it is expected that they would observe the guidelines. The flying or non flying and treatment of the National Flag is a matter for each organisation.”
It is, however normal practice to fly the flag from military posts and important state buildings. All state buildings that have a flagpole fly the flag on important national days such as St Patrick’s Day, Easter Sunday and the National Day of Commemoration.
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Fas offer brilliant entry level I.T courses online also. I currently am doing a MTA in networking and will move on to software development and they are very good courses.
I am being serious.. What I like about the coderdojo set up though is that there is a community/group aspect to it.. I would like to pick up coding as a hobby rather than as a certificate or diploma course.
Definitely a good step, but code clubs as part of school life is truely the way forward. Government need to support schools in making it attractive for programmers/developers to want to go into teaching (.NET, Java, Ruby etc etc), but I fear they will only do this when its too late and other countries steal a march in this area!
Visit coderdojo.com/ Rachel, try to find a Dojo near to where you live (or you could even organise your own Dojo) and just bring your son along with a laptop to start coding with and you both join in, and hopefully he’ll have the natural Grá for Coding and you’ll be with him there to support and participate. Best of luck.
If you want to start learning the basics of coding and then build your own app, I can recommend Buzztouch.com. I have built a number of apps using this platform. After you complete your project you own the source code and publish the apps in your own name. My most recent app is Irish Solo Sets designed for Irish dancers and has done quite well on the App Store. Coding is a great way to be creative and the app store is a fantastic way to access to the global market place.
I organise the dojo in Dundalk and we have 70 kids signed up every second week from September to May, then once a month June, July and August. It’s a fantastic thing for a child if they are interested in computing and I can’t recommend getting involved more. We’ve had coders with us for two years that started out without any idea how to program that are now teaching others how to write client-server applications in Python, or building raspberry pi-based networks. It makes an enormous difference to the community and opens doors for everyone involved (both mentors and coders). However, this article makes it sound like a central organisation sets up dojos like branches in a bank! Dojos are organised and run by locals in the community, each is completely independent and one can be started at any time.
My point is this: Don’t wait for one to be started by a central body. If you want one near you, then act on it! If you know about computing, check if there’s one already running in the vicinity (https://zen.coderdojo.com/ has a list of all currently registered dojos and there should be a point of contact available too) and if there’s one around then sign up. If there isn’t, talk to others in the area and see if you can get 2 or 3 mentors together, then go to http://www.coderdojo.com and set one up yourself. It can be hard work at times, but you’ll never regret it. Dundalk is up and running almost 2.5 years, Drogheda is running almost 3. Get a few interested and enthusiastic people into a room and you can have one in your own area in next to no time, instead of hoping that there’ll be one within driving range.
Oh, and if you don’t know anything about computing, you can still get involved in loads of ways. Dojos will always take an offer of help, even if it’s just being an extra body for organising!
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