Rossa's Recollections, 1838 to 1898. Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa
for the first verse of it is:
“My horse he is white, altho’ at first he was grey,
He took great delight in traveling by night and by day;
His travels were great if I could but the half of them tell,
He was rode by St. Ruth the day that at Aughrim he fell.”
But the song about “The Kerry Eagle” is the one I used to take delight in. Here are a few verses of it:
“You true sons of Grania come listen awhile to my song,
And when that you hear it I’m sure you won’t say that I’m wrong;
It is of a bold eagle, his age it was over three-score,
He was the pride of the tribe, and the flower of Erin’s green shore.
“From the green hills of Kerry so merry, my eagle took wing,
With talents most rare, in Clare he began for to sing;
The people admired and delighted in his charming air,
And soon they elected him in as a member for Clare.
“Then straight off to London my eagle took flight o’er the main,
His voice reached America, all over Europe and Spain;
The black-feathered tribe, they thought for to bribe his sweet notes,
But he would not sing to the tune of their infernal oaths.
…
“Then back to Graniawail he set sail like a cloud through a smoke,
And told her that one of her long galling fetters was broke;
For the Emancipation the nation stood up to a man,
And my eagle in triumph united the whole Irish land.
“There was at that time a pert little bird called d’Esterre,
Who challenged my eagle to fight on the plains of Kildare;
But my eagle that morning, for Ireland he showed a true pluck,
For a full ounce of lead in the belly of d’Esterre he had stuck.
…
“And now to conclude: may his soul rest in heaven, I pray,
His motto was peace, his country he ne’er did betray;
The whole world I’m sure, can never produce such a man,
Let us all rest in peace, and forever remember brave Dan.”
Oh, yes; I have love-songs, too, with big rocky words of English in them, such as the song of the Colleen Fhune, of which this is a verse:
“One morning early for recreation,
As I perigrinated by a river-side,
Whose verdant verges were decorated
With bloom, by nature diversified;
A charming creature I espied convenient,
She sadly playing a melodious tune;
She far transcended the goddess Venus,
And her appellation was the Colleen Fhune.”
The song that all the boys and girls in the house had, was the song of “The Battle of Ross.” It was composed by John Collins, of Myross, a man of some fame as a Gaelic scholar and poet, who wrote the Gaelic poem on Timoleague Abbey. “The Battle of Ross” was fought about the year 1800. I suppose it was no regular battle, but the little boys at our side of the house used to celebrate the victory of it every July 12, and march through the lanes and streets, with twigs and rods as guns, upon their shoulders.
Most of the grown people of my day remembered the battle. At the time of its occurrence the towns of Cork were famed for their societies of Orangemen—men who were born in Ireland, but who were sworn to uphold the foreign rule of England in their native land. They were schooled, and the like of them are to-day schooled, into believing that only for the protecting power of England, the Catholics of Ireland would kill the Protestants of Ireland. These Orangemen societies grew strong in many places, and became so aggressive and so fostered and patronized by the English governors, that they acted as if their mission was the English mission of rooting the old Irish race out of Ireland altogether. The spirit that harmonized with their education was the spirit expressed by those words painted on the gates of the town of Bandon:
“Turk, Jew or Atheist may enter here, but not a papist.”
Of that it is said that some one wrote under it these words:
“Whoever wrote that wrote it well,
For the same is written on the gates of hell.”
But about this battle of Ross that is celebrated in song by John Collins, I may as well let the poet tell the story of it in those words of his that are sung to the air of “The Boyne Water.”
July the twelfth in ancient Ross
There was a furious battle.
Where many an Amazonian lass
Made Irish bullets rattle.
Sir Parker pitched his Flavian band
Beyond the Rowry water,
Reviewed his forces on the strand
And marshaled them for slaughter.
They ate and drank from scrip and can
And drew their polished bayonets;
They swore destruction to each man
Dissenting from their tenets.
Replete with wrath and vengeance, too,
They drank “Annihilation
To that insidious, hated crew—
The Papists of the nation!”
Their chief advanced along the shore
And every rank incited;
“Brave boys,” said he, “mind what you swore”—
And what they swore recited.
“This night let’s stand as William stood:
Set yonder town on fire;
Wade through a flood of Papist blood
Or in the flames expire.”
The listening multitude approved,
With shouts of approbation,
Of what their generous leader moved
In his sweet peroration.
Each swore that he would never flee,
Or quit the field of action,
Unless assailed by more than three
Of any other faction.
They crossed the purling Rowry Glen,
Intent on spoil and plunder;
Their firelocks raised a dreadful din,
Like peals of distant thunder.
The Garde-de-Corps first led across;
The rest in martial order,
And in full gallop entered Ross
In fourteen minutes after.
The warlike women of the town,
Apprized of the invasion,
Like Amazons of high renown,
Soon formed into