The Red Hand County

This is a bit obscure, to say the least.

When I googled "red hand county", the only hits that mentioned Tyrone specifically were two links to a BBC football report and one to an advert for a mobile phone case.

The headline to the football report (as trailed by Google) read "Red Hand County beat Red Devils", with the secondary line "Tyrone become the first county side to beat Manchester United in the history of the Milk Cup." I was a bit puzzled by this, as the only Milk Cup I was aware of was a previous incarnation of the Football League Cup; and as far as I was aware, Irish counties never played in that competition. But it turns out that there's an international youth tournament, played annually in Northern Ireland, and it was known at one time, for sponsorship reasons, as the Dale Farm Milk Cup. In 2012, County Tyrone defeated Manchester United 2-0 in their opening game.

The mobile phone case ad said "The Red Hand County is a common nickname of County Tyrone, the red hand appears on the arms of the O'Neills." This case is part of a "county colours collection" – clearly aimed at fans of gaelic football teams.

But is it actually a nickname of County Tyrone? Wikipedia makes no mention of the red hand on its County Tyrone page. On its Red Hand of Ulster page, Wikipedia says that the red hand is "used in heraldry to denote the Irish province of Ulster". Well we knew that; it's on the Northern Ireland flag.

Further down the same page, Wikipedia mentions that "The Red Hand is present on a number of Ulster counties crests such as Antrim, Cavan, Londonderry, Monaghan and Tyrone." The only other mention of Tyrone is in a section that illustrates various flags that show the red hand – including the Northern Ireland flag, and the flag of Tyrone GAA, the Tyrone County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). Naturally I went to have a look at Wikipedia's Tyrone GAA page, and I found that it gives two nicknames: The O'Neill County, and The Red Hands.

So there, it would seem, we have it: "the Red Hand County" is not the nickname of County Tyrone; it's one nickname of the County Tyrone Gaelic football team. Which is sometimes used for their junior football team as well.