The national anthem needs new lyrics, but leave the Tricolour alone

Jim Cosgrove (Irish Examiner, Letters, Saturday, March 19) is right to advocate a new national anthem. Like Michael Clifford, I, too, attended a flag-raising ceremony at my son’s school and the multi-coloured scholars sang the anthem as Gaeilge.

I found the words out of place. A war song, the ‘Soldier’s Song’, was fit for its time, but hardly is now. The melody is great, but it needs new words, in keeping with today’s aspirations.

Leave the green, white and gold Tricolour alone. When United Irelander, TF Meagher, brought it back from the French Republic, he first flew it from the Wolfe Tone Club, in Waterford, on March 7, 1848. Tone, like other United Irishmen, Fitzgerald, and Hamilton Rowan, of 50 years before, was not Catholic, but a home-ruler.