The PSNI have confirmed that officers in Holywood, Co. Down were forced to investigate a complaint about an 'offensive' flag being flown outside a house in the town over the weekend. A statement from the police service said;
Police in Holywood attended an address in the Woodlands area yesterday following the report from a member of the public that a flag they believed to be offensive had been erected. Police attended and no offence was detected.
The reason that no offence had been detected was because the it was the flag of Europe and it was being flown in support of hometown hero Rory McIlroy and Team Europe at the Ryder Cup.
The unnamed Europhile who was flying the flag told BBC NI that he's a huge golf fan who wanted to get into the spirit of things.
I was having a house-warming party and decided to put up the European flag for the Ryder Cup. I was tidying up on Sunday morning and two police officers arrived. They didn't seem to know what the flag was themselves.
When you take into account what the complainant thought they were complaining about, it really doesn't say a lot for race relations (or intelligence) in Co.Down.
I said 'it is a European Union flag for the Ryder Cup'. They said there'd been a complaint about it being some sort of Arabic flag.
