As in the rest of Europe, from the mid-19th century Galicia witnessed the “invention of traditions”: collective symbolic imaginaries emerged with three particular features. First, the dispute between the regionally Galician or nationally Spanish importance of those symbols. The symbols propagated by the liberal regionalist movement from the late 19th century on were adopted by a majority of Galician society; this was not, however, the case with post-1916 nationalist symbols. Second, the important role of the Galician diaspora in the Americas. Third, the influence of mobilized minorities: most symbols were generated by an authoritative group of liberal regionalist intellectuals in the footsteps of Manuel Murguía and the Real Academia Galega (“Royal Galician Academy”).

Several attempts had been made since 1880 to create a “regional” march or anthem. On the occasion of a music competition organized in 1890 by the Orfeón Coruñés, the musical society of A Coruña directed by composer Pascual Veiga, lyrics and music were integrated into a Galician anthem. The winning composition (Os pinos) was a poem by Eduardo Pondal set to music by Veiga and invoking the mythical Celtic leader Breogán. The composition fell into oblivion until in December 1907 the Asociación Iniciadora y Protectora de la Academia Gallega (“Association for the Initiation and Protection of the Galician Academy”) scheduled this piece in an event held in Havana. Soon Os pinos became popular among the different Galician communities in the Americas. From beyond the sea, the score and the lyrics of Os pinos washed back into Galicia. Since 1916, the Irmandades da Fala (“Language Brotherhoods”), as well as a number of musical and choral societies linked to the Galicianist movement, gave the anthem its final boost.

Galicia’s white and blue flag was devised in the late 19th century. Until then, Galicia had only had a weak tradition of maritime flags apart from the white banner of St James. However, Galicia’s coat of arms had known a pronounced historical presence: the chalice surrounded by seven crosses (falsely believed to refer to Galicia’s ecclesiastical provinces) had enjoyed widespread usage. Despite its religious origin, this coat of arms was adopted by the liberal Galicianist movement; its first public appearance was on a flag when the mortal remains of poet Rosalía de Castro were transferred to the San Domingos de Bonaval church, in Santiago de Compostela, in 1891.

Under pressure from several Galician associations in the Americas, regionalist intellectuals finalized the flag’s design. Two different concepts clashed: traditionalists attaching greater value to heraldry preferred a white background, while the blue stripe (considered “localist” because of its putative origin, A Coruña, and modern, “national”) was favoured by liberal regionalists. Murguía was the flag’s actual arbiter and legitimizer. Usage gradually spread both in the Americas and in Galicia over the first decade of the 20th century.

Regionalists also established two lieux de mémoire. One commemorated the so-called “Martyrs of Carral”, in memory of the liberal-progressive members of the military who were shot in the town of Carral in 1846, and who were subsequently idealized as champions of Galicia’s national freedom. The other was the place that would later be known as the Panteón de Galegos Ilustres (“Pantheon of Illustrious Galicians”), in the San Domingos de Bonaval church in Santiago. It commenced with the aforementioned transfer of Rosalía de Castro’s remains in May 1891. Her funerary monument was financed by the Galician community in Havana. At a later point, in 1900, Alfredo Brañas, an ideologist of traditionalist regionalism, was interred there. However, the use of the Pantheon was not institutionalized; it was only during the Franco regime that it became a focus of Galicianism.

A holiday (Galicia Day) failed to be established as such by the liberal-regionalist generation. The feast day of St James the Apostle (25 July) had already been informally accepted by custom as a time for different sectors of civil society and emigrants’ associations to identify with Galicia. To be sure, this feast day of the patron saint of the Spanish lands was festively observed everywhere in Spain, but it also served to celebrate Galicia’s contribution to Spanish history, building something more than a merely local or regional awareness. The post-1916 nationalist generation managed to set the 25th of July as the Day of the Fatherland – after some hesitation between this date (preferred by the Catholic and traditionalist sections of public opinion) and the more secular 17th of December. That date commemorated the 1483 execution of Marshal Pardo de Cela, a nobleman who had opposed Queen Isabella of Castile; the Galicianist movement had idealized him as a proto-national martyr. It was, however, the 25th of July that prevailed, as a secularized commemoration whose sacral function was now transferred to the fatherland.