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I can understand the point that to be Irish before Ireland exists is over-stepping the bounds of Yeats’ meaning in the poem. However, I wonder if instead of implying that one can be “Irish” before Ireland exists that Yeats considers this characteristic to be innate to human nature beyond the racial confines of Saxon, Celtic, Germanic, or what have you. Rather, as Yeats explains in “The Celtic Element in Literature”, “the Celtic alone has been for centuries close to the main river of European literature. It has again and again brought ‘the vivifying spirit’ ‘of excess’ into the arts of Europe.” What I think Yeats is getting at is that the Celtic nature is one that manifests the essence of humanity most accurately, and that it is one of few, if not the only heritage, that still perpetuates this essence so determinately in its modern culture. So I think you’re right to conclude that the image of the red-rose-bordered-hem is a description of the Irish essence itself. I simply think that Yeats wants his readers to expand beyond the historical confines of “Irish” identity, and instead connect to a wider scope of identity in humanity itself. In doing so Yeats fortifies the Irish identity as one to be valued as the most accurate depiction of humanity’s heritage.