Do we want our next president to be ashamed of the tricolour?

A strange question, so you’d think. But back in 2007, then MEP and current presidential candidate Avril Doyle asked for the tricolour to be removed from a church before her daughter's wedding. Is this the kind of behaviour we want from our next president?

"It was my personal call as I believe there is no place in church for flags of any kind. Having got permission, we removed both the tricolour and the Vatican flag from the altar for the wedding ceremony," Ms Doyle told the Irish Independent after the wedding on 31 August, 2007.

The politician had asked for both the tricolour and a papal flag to be removed from the altar of Crossabeg Church in Wexford prior to her daughter Christine marrying Englishman Glen Howitt.

No place for nationalism in the church, she said at the time. "It has been my consistent position for many years that there should not be flags of any kind inside a church. Will there be national borders in the next life?"

What do you think? Do we really want our next President to be ashamed of our national flag?

One local seemed to think so after Doyle's stand against the tricolour four years ago.

"The flags have been there since 2003, when we celebrated the bicentenary of convict priest Fr James Dixon's first Mass in Australia," one local told the Indo at the time.

"The flags have since been put back up, but they are not hanging in the correct way now. A lot of people down here are very annoyed about the fact that these flags were taken down. You have to ask if our MEP is ashamed of our flag?"