The red, white and green tricolour of the Newfoundland Natives' Society (NNS) was widely recognized as the flag of Newfoundland during the mid to late nineteenth century. With the introduction of Responsible Government in 1855 the need for the NNS waned and it ceased operations in 1866. The red-white-green flag gradually disappeared from use. The pink, white and green colours of the Catholic Church established Newfoundland Fishermen's Star of the Sea Association, as specified in their first published rules and by-laws, appeared sometime after the group's formation in 1871 and may have been confused with the NNS's red, white and green tricolour by reporters and from black-and-white photographs of the period, from which it is impossible to distinguish the actual colours. There is no reason to believe that the pink and green colours of the Star of the Sea Association flag were intended as a symbol of union between Catholic groups as in the Devine and O'Mara legend. With the Association's inception in 1871, their by-laws stated "the banner of the Association shall be green ground, white star with pink cross in the centre" and the officers "shall wear, at all processions, sashes of green, white and pink." The actual tricolour flag based on these colours, commonly called as the "Pink, White and Green", seems to have surfaced within the Association sometime in the late 1880s and there is no known historical evidence to indicate its existence before that time. The Newfoundland Fishermen's Star of the Sea Association appeared publicly under these colours, in the form of green, white and pink sashes and green banner with a pink cross and white star for the first time in 1875 when they marched alongside the Benevolent Irish Society in St. John's during their centenary celebrations parade of Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell's birth. Newspaper descriptions of this event report the NNS's red, white and green flag being flown prominently as the flag of Newfoundland, alongside the flags of England, Ireland, France and the United States, but make no mention of a pink, white and green tricolour. Sometime afterward, the "Pink, White and Green" tricolour appeared and, with the support of the clergy, was adopted by other Catholic groups in the St. John's and surrounding area in the 1880s and 1890s.