"Take it Down from the Mast" is an Irish republican song originally written in 1923 by James Ryan, and published in Leslie Daiken's collection Good-Bye, Twilight: Songs of Struggle in Ireland in 1936, entitled "Lines Written by an Irish Soldier in 1923". Its lyrics refer to the Irish Civil War (1922–23). The flag in question is the Irish tricolour, which the song tells supporters of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the Irish Free State to take down and cease using, as it is also the flag of the Irish Republic, which the "Free Staters" betrayed.