Flag of the Netherlands The red-white-blue triband flag of the Netherlands as used in the 17th century is said to have influenced the Russian flag. With the revolution in the Netherlands in the last decade of the 18th century, and the conquest by the French, the name "Prince's Flag" was forbidden. The orange-white-blue was changed into red-white-blue (colours to which the French "liberators" were kindly disposed, analogous as they were to their own tricolour, chosen just a few months earlier) and in 1796 the red division of the flag was embellished with the figure of a Netherlands maiden, with a lion at her feet,
Flag of Ireland a six-pointed star. Furthermore, for many years the tricolour was effectively banned in Northern Ireland under the Flags and Emblems (Display) Act (Northern Ireland) 1954 which empowered the police to remove any flag that could cause a breach of the peace but specified, rather controversially, that a Union Flag could never have such an effect. In 1964, the enforcement of this law by the Royal Ulster Constabulary at the behest of Ian Paisley, involving the removal of a single tricolour from the offices of Sinn Féin in Belfast, led to two days of rioting. The tricolour was immediately replaced, highlighting