Thomas Davis, Selections from His Prose and Poetry, ed. T. W. Rolleston (NY: [1915])

WITH AN INTRODUCTION

BY

T. W. ROLLESTON, M.A.

NEW YORK:

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

[ Drawing of Thomas Davis and his signature]

Library of Irish Literature

General Editors: Alfred Perceval Graves, M.A.

William Magennis, M.A. Douglas Hyde, LL.D.

(Dublin).

In the present edition of Thomas Davis it is designed to offer a selection of his writings more fully representative than has hitherto appeared in one volume. The book opens with the best of his historical studies - his masterly vindication of the much-maligned Irish Parliament of James II. [1] Next follows a selection of his literary, historical and political articles from The Nation and other sources, and, finally, we present a selection from his poems, containing, it is hoped, everything of high and permanent value which he wrote in that medium. The “Address to the Historical Society” and the essay on “Udalism and Feudalism,” which were reprinted in the edition of Davis’s Prose Writings published by Walter Scott in 1890, are here omitted - the former because it seemed possible to fill with more valuable and mature work the space it would have taken, and the latter because the cause which it was written to support has in our day been practically won; Udalism will inevitably be the universal type of land-tenure in Ireland, and the real problem which we have before us is not how to win but how to make use of the institution, a matter with which Davis, in this essay, does not concern himself.

The life of Thomas Davis has been written by his friend and colleague, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, and an excellent abridgment of it appears as a volume in the “New Irish Library.” In the latter easily available form it may be hoped that there are few Irishmen who have not made themselves acquainted with it. It is not, therefore, necessary to deal with it here in much detail. Davis was born in Mallow on October 14th, 1814. His father, who came of a family originally Welsh, but long settled in Buckinghamshire, had been a surgeon in the Royal Artillery. His mother, Mary Atkins, came of a Cromwellian family settled in the County Cork. It does not seem an altogether hopeful kind of ancestry for an Irish Nationalist, and his family were, as a matter of fact, altogether of the other way of thinking. But the fact that his great-grandmother, on the maternal side, was a daughter of The O’Sullivan Beare may have had a counteracting influence, if not through the physical channel of heredity, at least through the poet’s imagination. As a child, Davis was delicate in health, sensitive, dreamy, awkward, and passed for a dunce. It was not until he had entered Trinity College that the passion for study possessed him. This passion had manifestly been kindled, in the first instance, by the flame of patriotism, but how and when he first came to break loose from the traditional politics of his family we have no means of knowing, unless a gleam of light is thrown on the matter by a saying of his from a speech at Conciliation Hall: - “I was brought up in a mixed seminary,[2] where I learned to know, and knowing to love, my countrymen.”

At the University he sought no academic distinctions, but read omnivorously. History, philosophy, economics, and ethics were the subjects into which he flung himself with ardour, and which, in after days, he was continually seeking to turn to the uses of his country. By the time he had left College and was called to the Bar (1837) he had disciplined himself by thought and study, and was a very different being from the dreamy and backward youth described for us by the candid friends of his schooldays. A dreamer, indeed, he always was, but he had learned from Bishop Butler, whom he reverenced profoundly and spoke of as “the Copernicus of ethics,” that there is no practice more fatal to moral strength than dreaming divorced from action. Some concrete act, some definite thing to be done, was now always in his mind, but always, it may be added, as the realisation of some principle arrived at by serious and accurate thinking. He had acquired clear convictions, his powers of application were enormous, he had a boundless fertility of invention, and was manifestly marked out as a leader of men. It is interesting to go through the pages of Davis’s Essays and to note how many of his practical suggestions for work to be done in Ireland have been taken up with success, especially in the direction of music and poetry, of the Gaelic language, and of the study of Irish archaeology and the protection of its remains. But a new Davis would mark with keener interest the many tasks which yet remain to be taken in hand.

His connection with the Bar was little more than nominal; from the beginning, the serious work of his life seemed destined to be journalism. After some experiments in various directions, he, with Gavan Duffy and John Blake Dillon, during a walk in the Phœnix Park in the spring of 1842, decided to establish a new weekly journal, to be entitled, on Davis’s suggestion, The Nation. Its purpose, which it was afterwards to fulfil so nobly, was admirably expressed in its motto, taken from a saying of Stephen Woulfe: “To create and foster public opinion in Ireland, and to make it racy of the soil.” Davis’s was the suggestion of making national poems and ballads a prominent feature of the journal - the feature by which it became best known and did, perhaps, its most impressive, if not its most valuable, work. His “Lament for Owen Roe,” which appeared in the sixth number, worked in Ireland like an electric shock, and woke a sleeping faculty to life and action. Henceforth Davis’s public life was bound up with the Nation. Into this channel he threw all his powers. What kind of influence he exerted from that post of vantage the pages of this book will tell.

Davis was naturally a member of O’Connell’s Repeal Association, but took no prominent part in its proceedings, except on one momentous occasion on which we must dwell for a while. The debate was on the subject of Peel’s Bill for the establishment of a large scheme of non-sectarian education in Ireland. Of this measure Sir Charles Duffy writes: -

“A majority of the Catholic Bishops approved of the general design, objecting to certain details. All the barristers and country gentlemen in the Association, and the middle class generally, supported it. To Davis it was like the unhoped-for realization of a dream. To educate the young men of the middle class and of both races, and to educate them together, that prejudice and bigotry might be killed in the bud, was one of the projects nearest his heart. It would strengthen the soul of Ireland with knowledge, he said, and knit the creeds in liberal and trusting friendship.”[3]

But O’Connell, though he had previously favoured the principle of mixed education, now saw a chance of flinging down a challenge to the “Young Irelanders” from a vantage-ground of immense tactical value. He threw his whole weight against the proposal, taunted and interrupted its supporters, and seemed determined at any cost to wreck the measure on which such high hopes had been set. The emotion which Davis felt, and which caused him to burst into tears in the midst of the debate, seemed to some of his friends at the time over-strained. But he was not the first strong man from whom public calamities have drawn tears; and assuredly if ever there were cause for tears, Davis had reason to shed them then. More, perhaps, than any man present, he realised the fateful nature of the decision which was being made. He knew that one of the governing facts about Irish public life is the existence in the country of two races who remain life-long strangers to each other. Catholic and Protestant present to each other a familiar front, but behind the surface of each is a dark background which in later life, when associations, and often prejudices, have been formed, the other can rarely penetrate and rarely wishes to do so. It was Davis’s belief that if the young people of Ireland were to be permanently segregated from childhood to manhood in different schools, different universities, where early friendships, the most intimate and familiar of any, could never be made, and ideas never interchanged except through public controversy, the barrier between the two Irish races would be infinitely difficult to break down, and no scheme of Irish government could be conceived which would not seem like a triumph to one of them and bondage to the other. The views of the Young Irelanders did not prevail, and Ireland as a nation has paid the penalty for two generations, and will probably pay it for many a day to come. It may, of course, be argued that religious interests are paramount, and that these are incompatible with a scheme of mixed education. This is not the place to debate such a question, nor can anyone quarrel with a decision arrived at on such grounds. But let it be arrived at with a clear understanding of the certain consequences, and let it be admitted that when Davis saw the wreck of the scheme for united education he felt truly that a long and perhaps, for many generations, irretrievable step was being taken away from the road to nationhood.

But after this despondent reflection, let us cheer ourselves by setting the proud and moving words with which Duffy concludes his account of the transactions in the Life of Davis: -

“I have not tacked to any transaction in this narrative the moral which it suggests; the thoughtful reader prefers to draw his own conclusions. But for once I ask those to whom this book is dedicated to note the conduct of Catholic young men in a mortal contest. The hereditary leader of the people, sure to be backed by the whole force of the unreflecting masses, and supported on this occasion by the bulk of the national clergy - a man of genius, an historic man wielding an authority made august by a life’s services, a solemn moral authority with which it is ridiculous to compare the purely political influence of anyone who has succeeded him as a tribune of the people - was against Thomas Davis, and able, no one doubted, to overwhelm him and his sympathisers in political ruin. A public career might be closed for all of us; our journal might be extinguished; we were already denounced as intriguers and infidels; it was quite certain that, by-and-by, we would be described as hirelings of the Castle. But Davis was right; and of all his associates, not one man flinched from his side - not one man. A crisis bringing character to a sharper test has never arisen in our history, nor can ever arise; and the conduct of these men, it seems to me, is some guarantee how their successors would act in any similar emergency.”

The year 1845 was loaded with disaster for Ireland. It saw the defeat of the Education scheme; it saw the advancing shadow of the awful calamity in which the Repeal movement, the Young Irelanders, and everything of hope and promise that lived and moved in Ireland were to perish - and it saw the death of Thomas Davis.

He had had an attack of scarlet fever, from which he seemed to be recovering, but a relapse took place - owing, perhaps, to incautious exposure before his strength had returned - and, in the early dawn of September 15th, he passed away in his mother’s house. The years of his life were thirty-one; his public life had lasted but for three. His funeral was marked by an extraordinary outburst of grief and affection, which was shared by men of all creeds, all classes, all political camps in Ireland.

No mourning, indeed, could be too deep for the withdrawal at such a moment of such a leader from the task to which he had consecrated his life. That task was far more than the winning of political independence for his country. Davis united in himself, in a degree which has never been known before or since, the spirit of two great originators in Irish history - the spirit of Swift and the spirit of Berkeley - of Swift, the champion of his country against foreign oppression; of Berkeley, who bade her turn her thoughts inward, who summoned her to cultivate the faculties and use the liberties she already possessed for the development of her resources and the strengthening of her national character. Davis’s best and most original work was educative rather than aggressive. He often wrote, as Duffy says, “in a tone of strict and haughty discipline designed to make the people fit to use and fit to enjoy liberty.” No one recognised more fully than he the regenerative value of political forms, but his ideal was never that of a millennium to be won by Act of Parliament - he was ever on the watch for some opportunity to remind his countrymen of the indispensable need of self-discipline and self-reliance, of toil, of veracity, of justice and fairness towards opponents. No one ever said sharper and sterner things to the Irish people - witness his articles on “Scolding Mobs,” on “Moral Force,” and on the attack upon one of the jurors who had convicted O’Connell at the State Trial. [4] But Davis could utter hard things without wounding, for, when all is said, the dominant temper of the man was love. That, and that alone, was at the very centre of his being, and by that influence everything that came from him was irradiated and warmed. He had, as an Irish patriot, unwavering faith, unquenchable hope; he had also, and above all, the charity which gave to every other faculty and attainment the supreme, the most enduring grace.

T. W. ROLLESTON [n.d.].

1. This work, with the inclusion of the full text of the more important of the Acts of the Parliament of James II, and with an Introduction by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, was reprinted from the Dublin Monthly Magazine of 1843 by Mr. Fisher Unwin in 1891 as the first volume of the ‘New Irish Library.’ It is now out of print.

2. Mr. Mongan’s School on Lower Mount Street.

3. “Life of Davis,” p. 286.

4. “Life of Davis,” pp. 218, 219.

5. King’s “State of the Protestants.” Harris’s “Life of King William,” folio, Dublin, 1749, book 8. Leland’s “History of Ireland,” vol. 3, book 6, chaps. 5 and 6. Lesley’s “Answer to King’s State of the Protestants,” London, 1692. Curry’s “Review of the Civil Wars of Ireland.” Plowden’s “Historical Review of Ireland; also History of Ireland,” vol. i, c. 9. Jones’s “Reply to an anonymous writer from Belfast, signed Portia,” Dublin, 1792.

6. Thorpe’s MSS.

7. London, 2 vols. 4to, edited by Rev. J. Clarke.

8. Paris, 1825, 3 vols. 8vo.

9. Spenser’s “View”; Fynes Moryson’s “Itinerary”; Captain Lee’s “Memoir”; Harris’s “Letters”; and Carte’s “Ormonde.”

10. See the proofs of this collected in Carey’s “Vindiciæ Hibernicæ.”

11. Milton’s “Eikonoclastes”; Warner’s “History of the Rebellion”; Carey’s “Vindiciæ”; and Pamphlets, Libraries of Trinity College and the Dublin Society.

12. Sir W. Petty’s “Political Anatomy of Ireland”; Lawrence’s “Interest of Ireland”; “Curry’s Review”; “Carte’s Life and Letters of Ormonde,” &c.

13. Hallam’s “Constitutional History,” v. 3, p. 588, 3rd edition.

14. Speke’s “Memoirs.”

15. See the Declaration of Union, dated 21st March, 1688, in the Appendix to Walker’s “Account of the Siege of Derry.”

16. These acts were done in good faith by the people, instigated by the devices of the nobles. A letter, now admitted to have been forged, was dispersed by Lord Mount Alexander, announcing the design of the Roman Catholics to murder the Protestants.

17. See as to this, Melfort’s letter to Pottinger, the sovereign of Belfast; “History of Belfast,” pp. 72-3; Lesley proves, on Williamite authority, that the Protestants were worse treated by William’s army than by James’s. See Dr. Gorges in Lesley’s Appendix.

18. He was appointed in 1686 (see Appendix B). T. W. R.

19. In July, 1691, William had offered these terms: 1st. The free public exercise of the Roman Catholic Religion. 2nd. Half the churches in the kingdom. 3rd. Half the employments, civil and military, if they pleased. 4th. Half their properties, as held prior to Cromwell’s conquest. The terms were at once refused. The suppressed proclamation doubtless offered at least as much. (Harris’s “William,” and Plowden, b. 2.)

20. Rawdon Papers, p. 253.

21. Anthony Hamilton, in his “Memoirs of Grammont,” exaggerates this to £40,000 a year, and attributes Miss Jennings’ affection to its attractions. But besides that, by his statement, Tyrconnell had been a rival of Grammont with Miss Hamilton, there is enough in Grammont to account for it otherwise. Hamilton, an Irishman, and a Jacobite, seems to have sympathised with Tyrconnell. He describes him as “one of the largest and most powerful looking men in England,” “with a brilliant and handsome appearance, and something of nobility, not to say haughtiness in his manners.” He mentions circumstances, showing him bold, free, amorous, and, strange for a courtier, punctual in payment of debts. Yet this man, so full of refinement, and so trained, is described by King as addressing the Irish Privy Council thus: - “I have put the sword into your hands, and God damn you all if ever you part with it.”

22. Clarendon’s “State Letters,” vol. i. and the Diary.

23. Hallam’s “Constitutional History,” v. iii, p. 530.

24. State Tracts, Will. III.’s reign, H. R.’s App. to Cox.

25. “Memoirs of James II,” by the Rev. - - Clarke, Chaplain to George IV. These memoirs seem to have been copies of memoirs written under James II.’s inspection, and deposited in the Scotch College in Paris. The originals perished at the French Revolution, and their copies came to Rome, from whence they were procured for the English government in 1805. See Mr. Clarke’s preface, and Guizot’s preface to his translation of them in the “Mémoires de la Révolution.”

26. Hallam (“Constitutional History,” chaps. 13 and 14) contains enough to show the uncertainty of the law. Throughout these, as in all parts of his work, he is a jealous Williamite and a bigoted Whig. His treatment of Curry has been justly censured by Mr. Wyse, in his valuable “History of the Catholic Association,” vol. i, pp. 36-7.

27. This Preamble is James II.’s own writing, as appears by “The Journal.”

28. The clause for the destruction of the Records of the parliament of 1689, is in an act annulling the attainders and all acts of 1689.

“Be it enacted by the King’s most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal and commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, That all and every the acts, or pretended acts, and the rolls whereon the said acts or pretended acts, and every of them, are recorded or engrossed, and all proceedings of what nature or kind soever had, made, done, or passed by the said persons lately so assembled at Dublin, pretending to be or calling themselves by the name of a Parliament, and also all writs issued in order to the calling of the said pretended Parliament, and returned into any office in this kingdom, and there remaining, and all the journals of the said pretended Parliament, and other books or writings in any wise relating thereunto, or to the holding thereof, shall, by the officers or persons in whose custody the same are, be brought before the lord deputy, or other chief governour or governours of this kingdom for the time being, at such time as the lord deputy, or other chief governour or governours for the time being shall appoint, at the council chamber in Dublin, and there shall be publicly and openly cancelled and utterly destroyed: and in case any officer or person in whose hands or custody the said acts and rolls or proceedings, or any of them, do or shall remain, shall wilfully neglect or refuse to produce the same, to the intent that the same may be cancelled and destroyed, according to the true intent of this act, every such person and officer shall be, and is hereby adjudged and declared to be from thenceforth incapable of any office or employment whatsoever, and shall forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred pounds, one-half thereof to his Majesty, and the other half to such person or persons that shall sue for the same by any action of debt, bill, plaint, or information, in any court of record whatsoever.” - 7 Will. III. Ir. c. 1.

“It is possible an outline of some such bill might have been prepared by one of those hot-headed people of whom James had too many in his councils either for his safety or for his reputation, and they were chiefly English; and that such draft of a bill having been laid before parliament, that wise, patriotic and sagacious body did ameliorate and reduce it into ‘the statute for the revival of the court of claims’; a law so unparalleled from its moderation in its review of forfeitures, by going back to Cromwell’s debentures exclusively; a period of only thirty-eight years anterior to the date of their then sitting.

“Such a draft of a bill, like our own protestant bill for the castration of Romish priests, which did pass here but was cushioned in England,[1] or like the threat of a bill for levelling popish chapels, which I myself heard made when I sat in the house of commons, such a draft of a bill, I say, might have been found among the baggage of the Duke of Tyrconnel, of Sir Richard Nagle, or of the unfortunate sovereign himself, for Burnet acquaints us, That all Tyrconnel’s papers were taken in the camp; and those of James were found in Dublin.” (Burnet’s “Own Times,” Vol. 2nd, p. 30).

1. This is not quite correct. The penalty in the Bill, as it passed the Irish House of Commons, was branding on the cheek. In sending the Bill on to England the Irish Privy Council substituted castration. The English Government restored the original penalty. The Bill ultimately fell through, but not, it would seem, on this point. See Lecky, “History of England,” Vol. I, ch. ii. - T. W. R.

29. The dates about the time of this revolution are most important. On the 10th October, 1688, William issued an address, dated at the Hague, and another from the same place, dated 24th October, intended to counterwork James’s retractations. He landed at Torbay, November 5th, arrived in London December 17th. Some Whig Lords signed an association, dated December 19th, pledging themselves to stand by the prince, and avenge him if he should perish. December 23rd, William issued the letter calling the members of Charles II.’s parliament, the mayor, aldermen, and 50 councillors of London. December 26th they met, called on the prince to assume the government and issue letters for a convention, and they signed the association of the Whig Lords. They presented their address 27th December, it was received December 28th, and then this little club broke up. December 29th William issued letters for a convention, which met 22nd January, 1688-9, finally agreed on their declaration against James and his family, and for William and Mary, 12th February; and these, king and queen, were proclaimed 13th February, 1688-9. February 19th, a Bill was brought in to call the convention a parliament; it passed, and received royal assent 23rd February. By this the lords and gentlemen who met 22nd January were named the two houses of parliament, and the acts of this convention-parliament were to date from 13th February. This hybrid sat till 20th August, and having passed the Attainder Act was adjourned to 20th September, and then 19th October, 1689. This second session lasted till 27th January, 1689-90, when it was stopped by a prorogation to the 2nd April; but before that day it was dissolved, and a parliament summoned by writ, which met 20th March, 1689, and as a first law, passed an act ratifying the proceedings of the convention.

30. The following is the list of books given as the present sources of history: -

some of the original sources of irish history.

ancient irish times.

Annals of Tigernach, abbot of Clonmacnoise, from A.D. 200 to his death, 1188, partly compiled from writers of the eighth, seventh, and sixth centuries.

Lives of St. Patrick, St. Columbanus, etc.

Annals of the Four Masters, from the earliest times to 1616.

Other Annals, such as those of Innisfallen, Ulster, Boyle, etc. Publications of the Irish Archæological Society, Danish and Icelandic Annals.

English invasion and the Pale.

Gerald de Barri, surnamed Cambrensis, “Topography” and “Conquest of Ireland.” Four Masters, Tracts in Harris’s Hibernica. Campion’s, Hanmer’s, Marlborough’s, Camden’s, Holingshed’s, Stanihurst’s, and Ware’s Histories. Hardiman’s Statutes of Kilkenny.

Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. - Harris’s Ware. O’Sullivan’s Catholic History. Four Masters. Spencer’s View. Sir G. Carew’s Pacata Hibernia. State Papers, Temp. H. VIII. Fynes Moryson’s Itinerary.

James I. - Harris’s Hibernica. Sir John Davies’ Tracts.

Charles I. - Strafford’s Letters. Carte’s Life of Ormond. Lodge’s Desiderata. Clarendon’s Rebellion. Tichborne’s Drogheda. State Trials. Rinuccini’s Letters. Pamphlets. Castlehaven’s Memoirs. Clanrickarde’s Memoirs. Peter Walsh. Sir J. Temple.

Charles II. - Lord Orrery’s Letters. Essex’s Letters.

James II. and William III. - King’s State of Protestants, and Lesley’s Answer. The Green Book. Statutes of James’s Parliament, in Dublin Magazine, 1843. Clarendon’s Letters. Rawdon Papers. Tracts. Molyneux’s Case of Ireland.

George I. and II. - Swift’s Life. Lucas’s Tracts. Howard’s Cases under Popery Laws. O’Leary’s Tracts. Boulter’s Letters. O’Connor’s and Parnell’s Irish Catholics. Foreman on “The Brigade.”

George III. - Grattan’s and Curran’s Speeches and Lives - Memoirs of Charlemont. Wilson’s Volunteers. Barrington’s Rise and Fall. Wolfe Tone’s Memoirs. Moore’s Fitzgerald. Wyse’s Catholic Association. Madden’s United Irishmen. Hay, Teeling, etc, on ‘98. Tracts. MacNevin’s State Trials. O’Connell’s and Sheil’s Speeches. Plowden’s History.

Compilations. - Moore. M’Geoghegan. Curry’s Civil Wars. Carey’s Vindiciæ. O’Connell’s Ireland. Leland.

Current Authorities. - The Acts of Parliament. Lords’ and Commons’ Journals and Debates. Lynch’s Legal Institutions.

Antiquities, Dress, Arms. - Royal Irish Academy’s Transactions and Museum. Walker’s Irish Bards. British Costume, in Library of Entertaining Knowledge.

31. Like many of the suggestions of Thomas Davis this has borne fruit. In our own day the Irish Folk Song Society (20 Hanover Square, London, W.) as well as the Feis Ceoil and the Gaelic League have done invaluable work in the direction indicated. - [Ed.]

32. Mellifont, founded in 1142 by O’Carroll, King of Oriel. - C.P.M.

33. See Irish Franciscan Monasteries, by C.P.M, C.C.

34. Again we note that, though late in the day, Davis’s appeal has been answered, and most of the important ancient monuments of the country placed under official protection. The real need now is for scientific exploration of the ancient sites. - [Ed.]

35. The reader who wishes to know what modern archæology has to say of this great tumulus may be referred to Mr. George Coffey’s “Newgrange,” published by Hodges, Figgis & Co, 1912. It dates from about 1,000 years earlier than Davis supposed.

36. The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xx. Dublin: Hodges & Smith, Grafton Street.

37. A turbulent and learned Franciscan friar who figured in the Confederation of Kilkenny. - C.P.M.

38. Author of the Life of Thucydides. - C.P.M.

39. See Mitchel’s Life of Hugh O’Neill, and Meehan’s Flight of the Earls. Dublin: Duffy & Sons.

40. Owen Roe, who defeated Monro, 1646.

41. “The Select Speeches of the Right Hon. Henry Grattan. To which is added his Letter on the Union, with a Commentary on his Career and Character.” By Daniel Owen Madden, Esq, of the Inner Temple. Dublin: James Duffy, 1845. 8vo, pp. 534.

42. The Industrial Resources of Ireland, by Robert Kane, M.D, Secretary to the Council of the Royal Irish Academy, Professor of Natural Philosophy to the Royal Dublin Society, and of Chemistry to the Apothecaries’ Hall of Ireland. Dublin: Hodges & Smith, 21 College Green.

43. ‘Bright water’ is the true rendering: Could Davis have been thinking of binn uisge, and supposing that binn meant sweet in taste as well as in sound? - [Ed.]

44. Tales and Sketches illustrating the Irish Peasantry. By William Carleton. James Duffy, Dublin, 1845. 1 vol, 8vo, pp. 393.

45. A splendid edition of this work, greatly enlarged, and printed in The Irish Exhibition Buildings, was issued by Messrs. Duffy and Sons, September, 1882.

46. The artist referred to was Sir Frederick Burton. [Ed.]

47. Ballad Poetry of Ireland, - Library of Ireland, No. II.

48. A “Ballad History of Ireland.”

49. This essay, together with another of less value, was reprinted from The Nation by M. J. Barry as an introduction to his “Songs of Ireland” 1845. [Ed.]

50. The withdrawal of the Coach Contracts from Ireland is but another instance of the same spiteful and feeble policy. Messrs. Bourne and Purcell had for years held the contract for building the Irish Mail Coaches. This contract was less a source of wealth to them than of support and comfort to hundreds of families employed by them. The contract runs out - Messrs. Bourne & Purcell propose in form for it - an informal proposal, at a rate inconsiderably lower, is sent in by another person, and is at once accepted. It is accepted notwithstanding its irregularity, and notwithstanding the offer of Messrs. Bourne & Purcell to take it, even at a loss, as low as anyone else. It is given to a foreigner. Were the difference triple what it was, that contract should have been left in Ireland. - Nation.

51. From The Nation May 17, 1845.

52. The Three Hundred Greeks who died at Thermopylæ, and the Three Romans who kept the Sublician Bridge.

53. Angl. Brehon.

54. Angl. Glyn.

55. Angl. Dingle.

56. Angl. Barrow.

57. Angl. Youghal.

58.. Angl. Maynooth.

59. Formerly the war-cry of the Geraldines, and now their motto.

60.  Angl. Curragh.

61. The concluding stanza was found among the author’s papers, and was inserted in the first edition. It is believed to have had a personal reference, not to any Geraldine but to William Smith O’Brien. - Ed.

62. Ara is a small mountain tract south of Loch Deirgdheire, and north of the Camailte, or the Keeper, hills. It was the seat of a branch of the Thomond princes, called the O’Briens of Ara.

63. Vulgo O’Kennedy.

64. Vul. M’Carthy.

65. Vul. O’Brien.

66. Vul. Drumineer.

67. Vul. Usquebaugh.

68. Vul. Kerne.

69. Vul. Killaloe.

70. Vul. Ryan.

71. Vul. Carroll.

72. Vul. Nenagh.

73. Vulgo, Ossory.

74. Vul. Lurrow.

75. Vul. Murrough.

76. Baltimore is a small seaport in the barony of Carbery, in South Munster. It grew up round a Castle of O’Driscoll’s, and was, after his ruin, colonized by the English. On the 20th of June, 1631, the crew of two Algerine galleys landed in the dead of the night, sacked the town, and bore off into slavery all who were not too old, or too young, or too fierce for their purpose. The pirates were steered up the intricate channel by one Hackett, a Dungarvan fisherman, whom they had taken at sea for the purpose. Two years after he was convicted and executed for the crime. Baltimore never recovered this. To the artist, the antiquary, and the naturalist, its neighbourhood is most interesting. See “The Ancient and Present State of the County and City of Cork,” by Charles Smith, M.D.

77. Commonly called Owen Roe O’Neill. Time, 10th November, 1649. Scene - Ormond’s Camp, County Waterford. Speakers - A veteran of Eoghan O’Neill’s clan, and one of the horsemen just arrived with an account of his death.

78. Clough Oughter.

79. Benburb.

80. Shule aroon.

81. Gap of danger.

82. Written on the funeral of the Rev. P. J. Tyrrell, P.P, of Lusk; one of those indicted with O’Connell in the Government prosecution of 1843.

83. Written in reply to some very beautiful verses printed in the Evening Mail, deprecating and defying the assumed hostility of the Irish Celts to the Irish Saxons.

84. Vulgo, Owen, a name frequent among the Cymry (Welsh).