Member's statement: St Patrick's Day

Member's statement by Mr Doug Beattie MC on 11 March 2025.

MLA: Mr Doug Beattie MC
Party at the time: Ulster Unionist Party
Date: 11 March 2025
Type: Member's statement
Business: Members' Statements
Heading: St Patrick's Day
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4854949

Text

As we hurtle towards St Patrick's Day, I am reminded of how that day drags together into one my sense of Irishness, my sense of Britishness and my military history. Today, I am wearing my regimental tie, that of the Royal Irish Regiment, which is green. Many argue that the colour of St Patrick is not green but azure blue. That is a fair argument, I guess: in the British system, azure blue is the heraldic colour that we use. Indeed, Queen Victoria, on forming the Irish Guards, allowed them to wear a blue plume in their busby — their bearskin — or a blue hackle. That gives a sense of the history. The shamrock, which is also on my tie, is incredibly important to me and my sense of Irishness, my sense of Britishness and my military history. Why is it important to me? Many people look at the shamrock and see it as having many connotations, including religious connotations, but, for me, it is about something different. On 5 March 1900, after the news of a particularly bloody battle in the Boer War that resulted in the relief of Ladysmith, Queen Victoria telegraphed the following message to her victorious troops:
"I have heard with the deepest concern of the heavy losses sustained by my brave Irish soldiers."
On 14 March of the same year, Queen Victoria issued the following instruction:
"Her Majesty the Queen is pleased to order that in future on Saint Patrick's Day all ranks in Her Majesty's Irish regiments shall wear as a distinction a sprig of shamrock in their head-dress to commemorate the gallantry of Her Irish soldiers during the recent battles in South Africa."
For my whole adult life, as somebody in the military, I have celebrated St Patrick's Day and worn a sprig of shamrock in my regimental headdress. Many traditions come from that, one of which is that, every St Patrick's Day morning, the warrant officers and sergeants in my unit delivered "gunfire" to our soldiers. Gunfire is tea and whiskey. Traditionally, it was tea and rum, but, being Irish, we put in the Irish whiskey. The strangest place where I have ever done that was in the desert of Kuwait in 2003. We ensured that soldiers were able to celebrate St Patrick's Day on 17 March: they had shamrocks sent across to the Kuwaiti desert, put them in their headdress and had gunfire first thing that morning. Lots of things about St Patrick's Day are important to people: for me, it is about blending my Irishness, my Britishness and my military service.

432 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.10 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
No identity-based framing was identified (0.98).
Subject area: Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials.
The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.

This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.

Jev’s structured answers

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.20	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.02	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.05	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.03	No
Controversy escalation	0.14	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.03	No
Overall judgement	0.10	At or below not-flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing (chosen)	0.98
Reports or questions it	0.01
Criticises or condemns it	0.00
Adopts it	0.01

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials	0.53
Another identity-related subject	0.41
Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations	0.03
Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty	0.02
Parades, bonfires and commemorations	0.01

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:12 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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