आयरलैंड के टापू पर 1542 से 1801 तक बसा ऐतिहासिक राज्य विकिपीडिया से, मुक्त विश्वकोश
आयरलैंड राजशाही(शास्त्रीय आयरिश:Ríoghacht Éireann; आधुनिक आयरिश:Ríocht Éireann), आयरलैंड द्वीप पर १५४२ से १८०० के बीच विद्यमान अंग्रेज़ी राजशाही का एक कठपुतली राज्य था। यह तब अस्तित्व में आई जब १५४२ में आयरलैंड की संसद ने क्राउन ऑफ़ आयरलैंड ऍक्ट पारित कर इंग्लैंड के राजा हेनरी अष्टम् को आयरलैंड का राजा घोषित कर दिया। राजतंत्र घोषित होने से पहले, इस राज्य को इंग्लैण्ड रियासत की एक जागीर(लॉर्डशिप) होने का पद प्राप्त था।
1 See coat of arms regarding use of a crowned harp as the arms of Ireland. Although numerous flags of Ireland existed during the period, the Kingdom of Ireland had no official flag.[1] See List of flags of Ireland.
इस राज्य की स्थापन के प्रारंभिक वर्षों में आयरिश राजतन्त्र को अन्य यूरोपीय राज्यों द्वारा मान्यता प्राप्त नहीं थी। हालाँकि, कुछ प्रोटोस्टेंट राज्यों ने इसे मान्यता दी थी, परंतु किसी भी कैथोलिक राज्य ने आयरलैंड को एक वाजिब राजतंत्र और इंग्लैंड के शासक को आयरिश सिंघासन का वैधिक वारिस मानने से इनकार कर दिया था। वर्ष १९५५ में पोप पॉल चतुर्थ ने रजा हेनरी की बेटी और उत्तराधिकारी, रानी मैरी प्र॰ को आयरलैंड की रानी होने की मान्यता प्रदान की।
W. G. Perrin and Herbert S. Vaughan, 1922, "British Flags. Their Early History and their Development at Sea; with an Account of the Origin of the Flag as a National Device", Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, pp. 51–52:
The red saltire on white ground which represents Ireland in the Union flag had only an ephemeral existence as a separate flag. Originating as the arms of the powerful Geraldines, who from the time of Henry II held the predominant position among those whose presence in Ireland was due to the efforts of the English sovereigns to subjugate that country, it is not to be expected that the native Irish should ever have taken kindly to a badge that could only remind them of their servitude to a race with whom they had little in common, and the attempt to father this emblem upon St Patrick (who, it may be remarked, is not entitled to a cross – since he was not a martyr) has evoked no response from the Irish themselves.
The earliest evidence of the existence of the red flag known to the author occurs in a map of "Hirlandia" by John Goghe dated 1576 and now exhibited in the Public Record Office. The arms at the head of this map are the St George's cross impaled on the crowned harp, but the red saltire is prominent in the arms of the Earl of Kildare and the other Geraldine families placed over their respective spheres of influence. The red saltire flag is flown at the masthead of a ship, possibly an Irish pirate, which is engaged in action in the St George's Channel with another ship flying the St George's cross. The St George's flag flies upon Cornwall, Wales and Man, but the red saltire flag does not appear upon Ireland itself, though it is placed upon the adjacent Mulls of Galloway and Kintyre in Scotland. It is, however, to be found in the arms of Trinity College, Dublin (1591), in which the banners of St George and of this saltire surmount the turrets that flank the castle gateway.
The Graydon MS. Flag Book of 1686 which belonged to Pepys does not contain this flag, but give as the flag of Ireland (which, it may be noted, appears as an afterthought right at the end of the book) the green flag with St George's cross and the harp, illustrated in Plate X, fig. 3. The saltire flag is nevertheless given as "Pavillon d'Ierne" in the flags plates at the commencement of the Neptune François of 1693, whence it was copied into later flag collections.
Under the Commonwealth and Protectorate, when England and Scotland were represented in the Great and other Seals by their crosses, Ireland was invariably represented by the harp that was added to the English and Scottish crosses to form a flag of the three kingdoms. At the funeral of Cromwell the Great Standards of England and Scotland had the St George's and St Andrew's crosses in chief respectively, but the Great Standard of Ireland had in chief a red cross (not saltire) on a yellow field.
When the Order of St Patrick was instituted in 1783 the red saltire was taken for the badge of the Order, and since this emblem was of convenient form for introduction into the Union flag of England and Scotland it was chosen in forming the combined flag of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1801.
Morley, Vincent (2002), Irish opinion and the American Revolution, 1760–1783, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, पृ॰4, मूल से 3 मई 2016 को पुरालेखित, अभिगमन तिथि 20 January 2012, Féach ár bpian le sé chéad bliain aige Gaill in éigean, gan rí dár rialadh de Ghaeil, mo chian, i ríoghacht Éireann. … (the above Gaelic sentence is translated a few lines later as:) Consider our torment for six hundred years by violent foreigners, with no king of the Gaels ruling us, my grief, in the kingdom of Ireland. … Here can be seen, in close association, expressions of religious loyalty to the pre-Reformation faith represented by Creggan churchyard; dynastic loyalty to the house of Stuart; and national loyalty to 'ríocht Éireann' , 'the kingdom of Ireland'.