The anthology is dedicated to “to [...] that glorious company of men, women and children who have given their lives for England’s sake’ and includes another section of Irish poets, The editor writes (Preface:) ‘This book is intended to be a representative collection of the patriotic poetry of the British Empire. I have taken a wide view of the term "patriotic" wide enough, indeed, to include the Jacobite Songs of Scotland and the National Songs of Ireland. [...] My scheme, as originally conceived, provided for the inclusion of a section representing the patriotism of America ; but, on reconsideration, I have decided not to go beyond the limits of the British Empire.’ In the Preface, he expresses thanks to Edward Dowden, W. E. Henley and Arthur Quiller-Couch. IN his Introduction, the Bishop of Calcutta professes to ‘heartily approve’ of ‘the purpose’ of the anthology, that being ‘[t]o consolidate the Empire, and to animate it as a whole with noble ideas, is one of the greatest needs and duties of the present day; and an empire, like an admiral, lives not by bread alone, but by its sentiments, its ambitions, its ideals. ’ (p.xii)

The “Ireland” section (Sect. IV), listed after Wales and Scotland but before Canada, &c., incls. Oliver Goldsmith [Home]; Anon. [The Wearing of the Green]; Thomas Moore [Minstrel Boy and 4 other songs]; Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna [The Maiden City]; James Clarence Mangan [Kincora; Dark Rosaleen]; Helen, Lady Dufferin [Bay of Dublin; Lament of the Irish Emigrant]; Sir Samuel Ferguson [O’Byrne’s Bard to the Clans of Wicklow; The Hills of Ireland]; Thomas Davis [My Land; The Dead Chief]; Aubrey de Vere [The Little Black Rose]; John Kells Ingram [The Memory of the Dead; National Peerage]; George Sigerson [The Flight of the Earls; Lament for Eoghan Rua O’Neill]; George Francis Savage-Armstrong [The Old Country]; Alfred Perceval Graves [The Song of the Erin]; John Casey Keegan [The Rising of the Moon]; Thomas William Rolleston [The Dead at Clonmacnois]; Katharine Tynan [KATHARINE TYNAN HINKSON [Shamrock Song]; Lionel Johnson [Ways of War].

Note that William Alexander, Archb. of Armagh [War] and J. K. Ingram [A Nation’s Wealth] are also listed under “England”. The ballad Dampier's Dream by Gerald Henry Supple (Sect. VIII: Australia, p.293[-94].