The “complete misuse” of the tricolour by the far-right means that many people are now “inclined” to think that someone flying it is anti-immigration, a columnist has claimed.

In recent years, towns and cities across Ireland have hosted demonstrations on the topic, with protestors waving the Irish flag at them.

On Newstalk Breakfast, Irish Examiner columnist Mick Clifford described this as a new phenomenon for protests in Ireland.

“It really came home to me the last month,” he explained .

“There was a major demonstration, rally, march in Dublin city centre and I noticed there was a stall at it.

“I noticed that cheap tricolours were on sale around the place; I’d never seen so many triclours in a gathering like that.

“Not even, for instance, at an Ireland soccer match.”

An Irish Tricolour flag fluttering in the breeze. Picture by: loren file / Alamy Stock Photo

Mr Clifford continued that it was a large march and that many people there were “simply disaffected with politics as usual”.

However, he added that a “core” number of people there were “what we describe as the far-right”.

“To me, there is an obvious and concerted effort to use the tricolour as their symbol and project themselves as being what they would style as the ‘real Irish’ or whatever,” he said.

“But I think it’s really a misappropriation of the flag and it most certainly does not represent the majority, if not the vast majority of people.

“It’s a complete misuse.”

The Irish Tricolour and flag of the European Union in Brussels. Picture by: ALEXANDROS MICHAILIDIS / Alamy Stock Photo

Mr Clifford added that use of a national symbol by the far-right was because they “have no symbol of their own”.

“They don’t represent any political entity,” he said.

“They don’t have any policies other than directing frustration and hatred towards immigrants.

“Therefore, the tricolour would be the handy thing to misappropriate.”

With that in mind, Mr Clifford said there is now an understandable “reluctance” by many people whose views are politically mainstream to fly it.

“If you see now, a tricolour flying outside a home or whatever, you’re inclined to think, ‘Well, they’re certainly suggesting they’re anti-immigrant’,” he said.

“Anti-asylum seeker specifically and, of course, they totally ignore that asylum seekers make up a tiny percentage of the number of people coming into the country.

“That agenda would seem to be there, definitely, and people try to use the flag to further that at the moment.”

The triclour was first flown in Waterford in 1848 by Thomas Francis Meagher; the flag was flown during the Easter Rising and adopted as the national flag by the Free State Government in 1922.

Main image: A protest in Dublin. Picture by: Alamy.com.