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Brien Boromhe, the great monarch of Ireland, who was killed at the battle of Clontarf, in the beginning of the 11th century, after having defeated the Danes in twenty-five engagements.

Munster.

The palace of Brien.

This alludes to an interesting circumstance related of the Dalgais, the favourite troops of Brien, when they were interrupted in their return from the battle of Clontarf, by Fitzpatrick, prince of Ossory. The wounded men entreated that they might be allowed to fight with the rest.—Let stakes (they said) be stuck in the ground, and suffer each of us, tied to and supported by one of these stakes, to be placed in his rank by the side of a sound man.” “Between seven and eight hundred wounded men (adds O'Halloran) pale, emaciated, and supported in this manner, appeared mixed with the foremost of the troops;—never was such another sight exhibited.”—History of Ireland, book xii. chap. i.

Solis Fons, near the Temple of Ammon.

“In the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Henry VIII. an Act was made respecting the habits, and dress in general, of the Irish, whereby all persons were restrained from being shorn or shaven above the ears, or from wearing Glibbes, or Coulins (long locks), on their heads, or hair on their upper lip, called Crommeal. On this occasion a song was written by one of our bards, in which an Irish virgin is made to give the preference to her dear Coulin (or the youth with the flowing locks) to all strangers (by which the English were meant), or those who wore their habits. Of this song, the air alone has reached us, and is universally admired.”—Walker's Historical Memoirs of Irish Bards, p. 134. Mr. Walker informs us also, that, about the same period, there were some harsh measures taken against the Irish Minstrels.

This ballad is founded upon the following anecdote:— “The people were inspired with such a spirit of honour, virtue, and religion, by the great example of Brien, and by his excellent administration, that, as a proof of it, we are informed that a young lady of great beauty, adorned with jewels and a costly dress, undertook a journey alone, from one end of the kingdom to the other, with a wand only in her hand, at the top of which was a ring of exceeding great value; and such an impression had the laws and government of this Monarch made on the minds of all the people, that no attempt was made upon her honour, nor was she robbed of her clothes or jewels.” —Warner's History of Ireland, vol. i. book x.

“The Meeting of the Waters” forms a part of that beautiful scenery which lies between Rathdrum and Arklow, in the county of Wicklow, and these lines were suggested by a visit to this romantic spot, in the summer of the year 1807.

The rivers Avon and Avoca.

“In every house was one or two harps, free to all travellers, who were the more caressed, the more they excelled in music.” —O'Halloran.

I have endeavoured here, without losing that Irish character, which it is my object to preserve throughout this work, to allude to the sad and ominous fatality, by which England has been deprived of so many great and good men, at a moment when she most requires all the aids of talent and integrity.

This designation, which has been before applied to Lord Nelson, is the title given to a celebrated Irish Hero, in a Poem by O'Guive, the bard of O'Niel, which is quoted in the “Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland,” page 433. “Con, of the hundred Fights, sleep in thy grass—grown tomb, and upbraid not our defeats with thy victories.”

Fox, “Romanorum ultimus.”

“This brought on an encounter between Malachi (the Monarch of Ireland in the tenth century) and the Danes, in which Malachi defeated two of their champions, whom he encountered successively, hand to hand, taking a collar of gold from the neck of one, and carrying off the sword of the other, as trophies of his victory.” —Warner's History of Ireland, vol. i. book ix.

“Military orders of knights were very early established in Ireland: long before the birth of Christ we find an hereditary order of Chivalry in Ulster, called Curaidhe na Craiobhe ruadh, or the Knights of the Red Branch, from their chief seat in Emania, adjoining to the palace of the Ulster kings, called Teagh na Craiobhe ruadh, or the Academy of the Red Branch; and contiguous to which was a large hospital, founded for the sick knights and soldiers, called Bronbhearg, or the House of the Sorrowful Soldier.” —O'Halloran's Introduction, &c., part i. chap. 5.

It was an old tradition, in the time of Giraldus, that Lough Neagh had been originally a fountain, by whose sudden overflowing the country was inundated, and a whole region, like the Atlantis of Plato, overwhelmed. He says that the fishermen, in clear weather, used to point out to strangers the tall ecclesiastical towers under the water. Piscatores aquæ illius turres ecclesiasticas, quæ more patriæ arctæ sunt et altæ, necnon et rotundæ, sub undis manifeste sereno tempore conspiciunt, et extraneis transeuntibus, reique causas admirantibus, frequenter ostendunt. —Topogr. Hib. dist. 2. c. 9.

To make this story intelligible in a song would require a much greater number of verses than any one is authorised to inflict upon an audience at once; the reader must therefore be content to learn, in a note, that Fionnuala, the daughter of Lir, was, by some supernatural power, transformed into a swan, and condemned to wander, for many hundred years, over certain lakes and rivers in Ireland, till the coming of Christianity, when the first sound of the mass-bell was to be the signal of her release.—I found this fanciful fiction among some manuscript translations from the Irish, which were begun under the direction of that enlightened friend of Ireland, the late Countess of Moira.

The inextinguishable fire of St. Bridget, at Kildare, which Giraldus mentions:—“Apud Kildariam occurrit Ignis Sanctæ Brigidæ, quem inextinguibilem vocant; non quod extingui non possit, sed quod tam solicite moniales et sanctæ mulieres ignem, suppetente materia, fovent et nutriunt, ut a tempore virginis per tot annorum curricula semper mansit inextinctus.” —Girald. Camb. de Mirabil. Hibern. dist. 2. c. 34.

Mrs. H. Tighe, in her exquisite lines on the lily, has applied this image to a still more important object.

We may suppose this apology to have been uttered by one of those wandering bards, whom Spenser so severely, and, perhaps, truly, describes in his State of Ireland, and whose poems, he tells us, “were sprinkled with some pretty flowers of their natural device, which have good grace and comeliness unto them, the which it is great pity to see abused to the gracing of wickedness and vice, which, with good usage, would serve to adorn and beautify virtue.”

It is conjectured by Wormius, that the name of Ireland is derived from Yr, the Runic for a bow, in the use of which weapon the Irish were once very expert. This derivation is certainly more creditable to us than the following: “So that Ireland, called the land of Ire, from the constant broils therein for 400 years, was now become the land of concord.” —Lloyd's State Worthies, art. The Lord Grandison.

See the Hymn, attributed to Alcæus, Εν μυρτου κλαδι το ξιφος φορησω—“I will carry my sword, hidden in myrtles, like Harmodius, and Aristogiton,” &c.

“Of such celestial bodies as are visible, the sun excepted, the single moon, as despicable as it is in comparison to most of the others, is much more beneficial than they all put together.” —Whiston's Theory, &c.

In the Entretiens d'Ariste, among other ingenious emblems, we find a starry sky without a moon, with these words, Non mille, quod absens.

This image was suggested by the following thought, which occurs somewhere in Sir William Jones's works: “The moon looks upon many night-flowers, the night-flower sees but one moon.”

An emblem of the soul.

“The Irish Corna was not entirely devoted to martial purposes. In the heroic ages, our ancestors quaffed Meadh out of them, as the Danish hunters do their beverage at this day.” —Walker.

I believe it is Marmontel who says, “Quand on n'a pas ce que l'on aime, il faut aimer ce que l'on a.”—There are so many matter-of-fact people, who take such jeux d'esprit as this defence of inconstancy, to be the actual and genuine sentiments of him who writes them, that they compel one, in self-defence, to be as matter-of-fact as themselves, and to remind them, that Democritus was not the worse physiologist, for having playfully contended that snow was black; nor Erasmus, in any degree, the less wise, for having written an ingenious encomium of folly.

Meaning, allegorically, the ancient Church of Ireland.

“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” —St. Paul, 2 Corinthians, iii. 17.

These lines were occasioned by the loss of a very near and dear relative, who had died lately at Madeira.

This song was written for a fête in honour of the Prince of Wales's Birthday, given by my friend, Major Bryan, at his seat in the country of Kilkenny.

I have here made a feeble effort to imitate that exquisite inscription of Shenstone's, “Hue! quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse!”

This ballad is founded upon one of the many stories related of St. Kevin, whose bed in the rock is to be seen at Glendalough, a most gloomy and romantic spot in the county of Wicklow.

There are many other curious traditions concerning this Lake, which may be found in Giraldus, Colgan, &c.

The words of this song were suggested by the very ancient Irish story called “Deirdri, or the Lamentable Fate of the Sons of Usnach,” which has been translated literally from the Gaelic, by Mr. O'Flanagan (see vol. i. of Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Dublin), and upon which it appears that the “Darthula of Macpherson” is founded. The treachery of Conor, King of Ulster, in putting to death the three sons of Usna, was the cause of a desolating war against Ulster, which terminated in the destruction of Eman. “This story (says Mr. O'Flanagan) has been, from time immemorial, held in high repute as one of the three tragic stories of the Irish. These are, ‘The death of the children of Touran;’ ‘The death of the children of Lear’ (both regarding Tuatha de Danans), and this, ‘The death of the children of Usnach,’ which is a Milesian story.” It will be recollected, that in the Second Number of these Melodies, there is a ballad upon the story of the children of Lear or Lir; “Silent, oh Moyle!” &c.

Whatever may be thought of those sanguine claims to antiquity, which Mr. O'Flanagan and others advance for the literature of Ireland, it would be a lasting reproach upon our nationality, if the Gaelic researches of this gentleman did not meet with all the liberal encouragement they so well merit.

“Oh Nasi! view that cloud that I here see in the sky! I see over Eman-green a chilling cloud of blood-tinged red.” —Deirdri's Song.

Ulster.

Propert. lib. i. eleg. 20.

It is said that St. Patrick, when preaching the Trinity to the Pagan Irish, used to illustrate his subject by reference to that species of trefoil called in Ireland by the name of the Shamrock; and hence, perhaps, the Island of Saints adopted this plant as her national emblem. Hope, among the ancients, was sometimes represented as a beautiful child, standing upon tip-toes, and a trefoil or three-coloured grass in her hand.

“There are countries,” says Montaigne, “where they believe the souls of the happy live in all manner of liberty, in delightful fields; and that it is those souls, repeating the words we utter, which we call Echo.”

“Steals silently to Morna's grove.”—See, in Mr. Bunting's collection, a poem translated from the Irish, by the late John Brown, one of my earliest college companions and friends, whose death was as singularly melancholy and unfortunate as his life had been amiable, honourable, and exemplary.

These stanzas are founded upon an event of most melancholy importance to Ireland; if, as we are told by our Irish historians, it gave England the first opportunity of profiting by our divisions and subduing us. The following are the circumstances, as related by O'Halloran:—“The king of Leinster had long conceived a violent affection for Dearbhorgil, daughter to the king of Meath, and though she had been for some time married to O'Ruark, prince of Breffni, yet it could not restrain his passion. They carried on a private correspondence, and she informed him that O'Ruark intended soon to go on a pilgrimage (an act of piety frequent in those days), and conjured him to embrace that opportunity of conveying her from a husband she detested to a lover she adored. Mac Murchad too punctually obeyed the summons, and had the lady conveyed to his capital of Ferns.”—The monarch Roderick espoused the cause of O'Ruark, while Mac Murchad fled to England, and obtained the assistance of Henry II.

“Such,” adds Giraldus Cambrensis (as I find him in an old translation), “is the variable and fickle nature of woman, by whom all mischief in the world (for the most part) do happen and come, as may appear by Marcus Antonius, and by the destruction of Troy.”

This ballad was suggested by a well-known and interesting story told of a certain noble family in England.

Our Wicklow Gold Mines, to which this verse alludes, deserve, I fear, but too well the character here given of them.

“The bird, having got its prize, settled not far off, with the talisman in his mouth. The prince drew near it, hoping it would drop it; but, as he approached, the bird took wing, and settled again,” &c. —Arabian Nights.

This alludes to a kind of Irish fairy, which is to be met with, they say, in the fields at dusk. As long as you keep your eyes upon him, he is fixed, and in your power;—but the moment you look away (and he is ingenious in furnishing some inducement) he vanishes. I had thought that this was the sprite which we call the Leprechaun; but a high authority upon such subjects, Lady Morgan, (in a note upon her national and interesting novel, O'Donnel,) has given a very different account of that goblin.

“The Sun-burst” was the fanciful name given by the ancient Irish to the Royal Banner.

In that rebellious but beautiful song, “When Erin first rose,” there is, if I recollect right, the following line:—

The chain of Silence was a sort of practical figure of rhetoric among the ancient Irish. Walker tells us of “a celebrated contention for precedence between Finn and Gaul, near Finn's palace at Almhaim, where the attending Bards, anxious, if possible, to produce a cessation of hostilities, shook the chain of Silence, and flung themselves among the ranks.” See also the Ode to Gaul, the Son of Morni, in Miss Brooke's Reliques of Irish Poetry.

—Juvenal.

Tous les habitans de Mercure sont vifs. —Pluralité des Mondes.

La Terre pourra être pour Vénus l'étoile du berger et la mère des amours, comme Vénus l'est pour nous. —Pluralité des Mondes.

In a metrical life of St. Senanus, which is taken from an old Kilkenny MS., and may be found among the Acta Sanctorum Hiberniæ, we are told of his flight to the island of Scattery, and his resolution not to admit any woman of the party; he refused to receive even a sister saint, St. Cannera, whom an angel had taken to the island for the express purpose of introducing her to him. The following was the ungracious answer of Senanus, according to his poetical biographer:

See the Acta Sanct. Hib., page 610.

According to Dr. Ledwich, St. Senanus was no less a personage than the river Shannon; but O'Connor and other antiquarians deny the metamorphose indignantly.

These verses were written after the perusal of a treatise by Mr. Hamilton, professing to prove that the Irish were originally Jews.

“Her sun is gone down while it was yet day.” —Jer. xv. 9.

“Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken.” —Isaiah, lxii. 4.

“How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!” —Isaiah, xiv. 11.

“Thy pomp is brought down to the grave ------ and the worms cover thee.” —Isaiah, xiv. 4.

“Thou shalt no more be called the Lady of Kingdoms.” —Isaiah, xlvii. 5.

Paul Zealand mentions that there is a mountain in some part of Ireland, where the ghosts of persons who have died in foreign lands walk about and converse with those they meet, like living people. If asked why they do not return to their homes, they say they are obliged to go to Mount Hecla, and disappear immediately.

The particulars of the tradition respecting O'Donohue and his White Horse, may be found in Mr. Weld's Account of Killarney, or more fully detailed in Derrick's Letters. For many years after his death, the spirit of this hero is supposed to have been seen on the morning of May-day, gliding over the lake on his favourite white horse, to the sound of sweet unearthly music, and preceded by groups of youths and maidens, who flung wreaths of delicate spring flowers in his path.

Among other stories, connected with this Legend of the Lakes, it is said that there was a young and beautiful girl whose imagination was so impressed with the idea of this visionary chieftain, that she fancied herself in love with him, and at last, in a fit of insanity, on a May-morning threw herself into the lake.

The boatmen at Killarney call those waves which come on a windy day, crested with foam, “O'Donohue's white horses.”

These lines were written on the death of our great patriot, Grattan, in the year 1820. It is only the two first verses that are either intended or fitted to be sung.