read the constitution, all irish events except for GAA matches make a disgrace of it, I'm with you! we need a junior irish flag that its ok to dis. put a picure of a brown envelope on a background of a golf course, it fairly represents alot of what seems to have gone on around our sleepy heads in teh last ten years.

I always wondered why people brought them to gigs. When U2 played at Slane, the place was polluted with Irish flags. Were they trying to remind Bono & co that they were playing in Ireland? Or maybe they wanted to see themselves on the big screen for a spilt second. Either way, leave the flags at home!!!

Actually, I think its rather touching. After all, for decades the flag had been hijacked by moustachioed, 'come all ye' twats like the Wolfe Tones and their 'Up The Ra' musical nonsense in much the same way that the Union Jack had been hijacked by the National Front before the coming of Brit Pop. So no, I think it is a good thing. By the way, U2 have shied away from the flag in the past, prefering to display the Stars and Stripes, so it was nice to see Bono keep himself warm with one at Slane.

Having said that it's usually muppets who are the ones dragging them along the ground and so on and so forth, ayone with respect just doesn't do it.

For example, people plastering the name of their pub/soccer club all over the flag and displaying them at Irish international soccer matches. Or the worst offences committed were when Jack Charlton was manager and people selling/buying Irish flags with his smug head on them. Disgraceful! So compared to Irish soccer "fans" many concert-goers are angels. Although i still reckon you look like a twat going around with your "proud to be Irish blah blah blah" slogans and your tricolour in tow

If anyone has one of those charlton mug tricolore's email me right away there's top dollar waiting!!!

I find it nice to see (on TV) irish flags in the middle of the crowd at overseas festivals like glastonbury, don't know why... do you remember when sonia o'sullivan would win championship races and everytime she took an irish flag on her lap of honour, SOMEONE in ireland would get offended and give out hysterically on 'liveline' the next day - her flag was too big/too small/on a stick/upside down/draped over her/waved like a scarf.... no wonder she decided to slow up in the olympic final!!!! for me, it's the celtic jerseys that worry me - much more than the tricolour, the celtic shirt seems to be used to represent a very aggressive nationalistic attitude, along the lines of 'you're not really irish if you're not shouting for celtic'. apologies to any liberal, open-minded celtic fans out there for getting tar from my brush all over your celtic jersey :D now, back to the music. quick, somebody say something about damien rice!

The worst thing is Celtic aren't even Irish. They're Scottish. I dislike both them and Rangers equally. I mean they're both pretty crap.

I don't know anything about soccer, but the Celts as a race probably originated in Central Europe, or possibly even further east in modern day Kazakhstan. Actually, the idea of Celts being a single race is probably untrue too as the word is derived from the Greek "Keltoi" meaning uncivilised. Not all "Irish" people are descended from Celts, many are descended from Vikings, Normans and (though some would like to think otherwise) a lot of us probably have a bit of Anglo-Saxon blood too. Then of course theres the more recent immigrants to this country from other parts who have attained full legal Irish or EU citizenship. OK, sorry to go a little "discovery channel" on you with that little diversion, but as you can see, if you REALLY know your history, you can see that argument about what actually is and isn't Irish is a bit redundant, this thread had a pretty tenuous relationship to music as it was but if it descends any more in to a petty, partisan argument on such matters, I'm gonna lock it, straight away. You've all been warned, now play nice.

Ok, but I'd like to make one last point aswell. A football club is basically about the people that support it because that's where the money comes from. AC Milan and FC Barcelona do not have supporters clubs up and down the breath of England like Celtic do in Ireland. Ireland's input into celtic has always been more pro-active than simply claiming that Irish people founded the club. I don't like all the religious biggotry some people try to associate with celtic either but in terms of celtic beening Irish, when you look at the fan base it is overwhelmingly Irish, alot more so than Man united or liverpool etc. Sorry, that's all I'll say on the matter

Ok guys, you've made your points. I think we can all agree that Celtic is a football club based in Scotland that happens to have some strong connections with Ireland. If you want to take the whole Celtic subject further, I suggest you both find a soccer related duscussion board.

my knickers get in a twist when i see celtic fans going on about how irish their club is. no offence el dude, but i don't agree, i know a lot about celtic's history, and i'm sorry, but celtic are quite happy to take the irish money like any good business. it may have irish connections, but its a marketing idea.

Yo Kierry, read my posts, find a Soccer discussion board. This whole Celtic thing has nothing to do with music and isn't really related to the original post which is about bringing your Flag to festivals. I don't want to lock the thread because the original topic is music related even if its a tenuous link, but one more post continuing the Celtic argument and this thread gets locked.