Noelle McCarthy: Canada sets fine example in style, simplicity, effect

The Canadians nailed it, if you ask me. Red leaf on a white square on a red background.

Simple, stylised, effective. As flags go, it's a cracker.

In terms of symbols, the maple is a smart pick; doing double duty invoking landscape and history, as well as having the added attraction of being inclusive and non-controversial.

After all, who'd pick a fight with a leaf? With the maple leaf, the Canadians came up with a simple, visual means of branding their country instantly.

A neat and portable way of carrying Canada with them wherever they go. I've seen that flag on a thousand back packs, from Auckland airport, to the beaches of Koh Phangan and I've admired it and recognised it every time.

Contrast that with the New Zealand flag, last seen being confused with its Australian counterpart by everybody from high commissioners to the surfers I saw at Piha last week.

There's nothing actually wrong with the national ensign. The only problem is it's so easy to get it mixed up with the one flown by the crowd across the way.

For all the talk of the Anzac spirit, Kiwis and Aussies have very little in common really, beyond the odd upwards inflection, and a shared tendency to tan. So, why fly such a similar flag?

History, not cultural similarity, is the reason you can't tell the two apart. But self definition should be a longer process than the fleeting public spasms that overtake us from time to time over here, and any conversation about changing the flag needs to acknowledge the history invested in the one we have.

Flags aren't simply a branding tool, their symbolism is far more powerful.

As a teenager in Ireland, drowning in emotional histories of 1916, my nascent republicanism reached its apogee when I decided I wanted to be buried in the tricolour.

Whether or not Pearse, Connelly McDonagh et al would have appreciated my gesture, I'm not sure.

I live here now, a long way away from the Dublin GPO, but the sight of my tricolour on a backpack or a uniform or a T-shirt is a powerful reminder of who I am and where I'm from.

Kiwis abroad deserve to enjoy that same throb of recognition and pride in their flag, as mine inspires in me, and its history that gives you that, as much as the attractiveness or otherwise of the thing itself.

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