Flags of The United Kingdom Untie!

I’m a Leader in Training for a local Brownie pack. You may already noticed this, because I’ve talked about it a time or two!

Anyway. On Wednesday, the girls made a sheet for their folders on the UK Flags that build up the Union Flag.

The blue and white background comes from Scotland’s, St. Andrews Flag:

The Red Diagonal Cross comes from Ireland’s St. Patrick’s Flag:

And the Red Upright Cross comes from England’s St. Georges Flag:

Put all three together and you get the Union Flag:

Many of the girls asked why Wales wasn’t included in the Union Flag. The correct answer is this –

The Welsh emblem Y Ddraig Goch (red dragon) doesn’t appear on the Union Flag because in 1606, when the flag was created, the Principality of Wales had already been united withEngland.Waleswas conquered byEnglandin the 13th century; it wasn’t a merger.

Now that got me thinking. Why shouldn’t Wales be part of the flag, now?

After all they have their own language, their own flag, their own government. Yes, I know, England conquered Wales and that makes it part of England. But the way the government is going, they’ll legally be a separate country in the union (as opposed to being a principality) so why shouldn’t they be part of the flag?

The Union Flag is made up of the combined saints flags of the countries. The Welsh saint is St. David:

So I played around with it and came up with this –

What’dya think? Fun, ey?

I love the welsh flag – Y Draig Goch – I think that as a flag for a country it is creative and unique.

Plus of course, I love dragons…

Maybe instead of having a joint flag, the countries of the UK should have separate flags with a symbol in them that brings them together.

I would hate to be the person who had to decide questions like this in the future!