University of Virginia Library

The following rhymes, slight and insignificant as they may now seem, had once a more powerful effect than either the Philippies of Demosthenes, or Cicero; and contributed not a little towards the great revolution in 1688. Let us hear a contemporary writer.

“A foolish ballad was made at that time, treating the Papists, and chiefly the Irish, in a very ridiculous manner, which had a burden said to be Irish words, “Lero, lero, liliburlero,” that made an impression on the [king's] army, that cannot be imagined by those that saw it not. The whole army, and at last the people both in city and country, were singing it perpetually. And perhaps never had so slight a thing so great an effect.”

It was written on occasion of the king's nominating to the lieutenancy of Ireland in 1686, general Talbot, newly created earl of Tyrconnel, a furious Papist, who had recommended himself to his bigotted master by his arbitrary treatment of the Protestants in the preceding year, when only lieutenant general; and whose subsequent conduct fully justified his expectations and their fears. The violences of his administration may be seen in any of the histories of those timts: particularly in bishop King's “State of the protestants in Ireland.”

Lilliburlero and Bullen-a-lah are said to have been the words of distinction used among the Irish Papists in their massacre of the Protestants in 1641.