Throughout history flags happen to be employed for symbolic reasons to indicate country, nation or even a specific team. Historical flags employ a unifying effect because they represent a specific group of people and a period of time. The unifying nature of historical flags means that they’re often held in very high regard and demand a great amount of respect. With time, historical flags have changed and evolved to maintain with the times but one flag that has remaind synonymous with great britain is the Union Jack.

The Union Jack is the flag of the Uk of Britain and Northern Ireland and the current design dates from the union of Ireland and Great Britain in 1801. The Union Jack is rich in historical importance and is also a flag which is represented all over the world. The historical flag is symbolic of the union of different countries to form the British Isles, a union that extends beyond the uk as the symbol with the Union Jack remains incorporated in other world flags such as that of Australia. The Union Jack presents unity and also diversity as this historical flag incorporates the national symbols of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The very name “Union Jack” implies a unity concerning the countries to make one. The Union Jack uses the national symbol of England in the form of the St. George’s Cross, the St. Andrew’s Cross to represent Scotland lastly the St. Patrick’s Cross to symbolise Ireland’s involvement. A final recognisable Union Jack flag that we now know is a culmination of the three countries to make one unified, transnational flag.

However, Wales has no explicit recognition within the Union Jack flag since the country had been united to England when the first version of the flag was designed in 1606 and was therefore showed by the flag of England. Wales do however have their unique representative flag in the shape of the Red Dragon. Having said that, there is some recent debate into whether the Union Jack should combine the Welsh flag to reflect Wales’ involvement in the uk. In 2007 Wrexham’s Labour MP Ian Lucas proposed that the Red Dragon should be added to the Union Jack’s red, white and blue pattern. This sparked off plenty of designs from across the world that included Wales’ Red Dragon.

Although the historical Union Jack flag was created to be a symbol of unity is really became a symbol of international controversy.It’s believed that when the initial step in the creation to the flag of Great britain back in 1606 was taken because of the unification of Scotland and England, neither parties were happy with the result. The first flag consisted of the red cross of England superimposed over the white cross of Scotland on the blue background of the Scottish flag. The English weren’t happy because white background of the red cross had gone and was substituted for the blue Scottish background. However, the Scottish did not like the fact the Red Cross was superimposed on top of the Scottish cross!

It would appear that you can’t please everyone and this historical flag still proceeds to cause controversy between the united countries right now!