{"id":72628,"date":"2025-05-04T01:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T01:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/72628\/"},"modified":"2025-05-04T01:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T01:41:10","slug":"sam-mcbride-a-new-flag-for-northern-ireland-would-be-a-fresh-start-free-of-the-nasty-baggage-of-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/72628\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam McBride: A new flag for Northern Ireland would be a fresh start, free of the nasty baggage of history"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell at The Gleneagles Hotel in 2014. Photo: Getty\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/GettyImages_456381272.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell at The Gleneagles Hotel in 2014. Photo: Getty<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">When Rory McIlroy won the Masters last month, the flag \u00adhoisted at the \u00adAugusta \u00adNational Golf Club wasn\u2019t the official flag of Northern Ireland, because no such flag exists. Instead, the golfing authorities ran the Ulster Banner up the flagpole. <\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">It wasn\u2019t an error \u2014 this is the flag that many people in Northern \u00adIreland recognise as theirs and it\u2019s one \u00adMcIlroy, who is proud of his north Down roots, has personally held.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell at The Gleneagles Hotel in 2014. Photo: Getty When Rory McIlroy won the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[1144,4287,6410,11528,16,15,4346],"class_list":{"0":"post-72628","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-northern-ireland","9":"tag-rory-mcilroy","10":"tag-sam-mcbride","11":"tag-sinn-fein","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-us-masters"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114447023119821879","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}