NOTES.

1 Remember the glories of Brien the Brave.

Brien Borombe, the great Monarch of Ireland, who was killed at the battle of Clontarf, in the beginning of the eleventh century, after having defeated the Danes in twenty-five engagements.

2 Though, lost to Mononia, and cold in the grave.

Munster.

3 He returns to Kinkora no more.

The palace of Brien.

4 Forget not our wounded companions, who stood.

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.

5 When he who adores thee.

These words allude to a story in an old Irish manuscript, which is too long and too melancholy to be inserted here,

6 In times of old, through Ammon's shade

Solis Fons, near the Temple of Ammon.

"One chord from that harp, or one lock from that hair.

"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 the 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, page 134 Mr. Walker informs us also, that about the same period, there were some harsh measures taken against the Irish Minstrels.

8 Rich and rare were the gems she wore.

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.

9 The Meeting of the Waters.

"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.

10 As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet. The rivers Avon and Ovoca.

11 St. Senanus.

In a metrical life of St. Senanus, which is taken from an old Kilkenny MS. and may be found among the Acta Sanctorum Hibernie, we are told of his flight to the island of Scattery, and his resoJution 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:

Cui Præsul quid fœminis

Commune est cum monachis,

Nec te nec ullam aliam

Admittemus in insulam.

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 antiquaries, deny this metamorphose indignantly.

12 Air-The Twisting of the Rope.

I had not sufficiently considered the structure of this delightful air, when I asserted that it was too wild for words of a regular metre.

13 Where weary travellers love to call.

"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.

14 We're fallen upon gloomy days.

I have endeavoured here, without losing that Irish character which it is my object to preserve throughout this work, to allude to that 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.

15 Thou, of the hundred fights.

This designation, which has been applied to Lord Nelson before, s the title given to a celebrated Irish hero, in a poem by O'Gnive, he Bard of O'Nial, 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!"

16 Truth, peace, and freedom hung!

Fox"ultimus Romanorum "

16* Air-Unknown.

Our claim to this air has been disputed; but they, who are best acquainted with National Melodies, pronounce it to be Irish. It is generally known by the name of The pretty girl of Derby, O!"

17 When Malachi wore the collar of gold.

"This brought on an encounter between Malachi (the Monarch of Ireland in the 10th 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 9.

18 Led the Red-Branch Knights to danger.

"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 Craoibhe 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 Craoibhe ruadh, or the Academy of the Red Branch; and contiguous to which was a large hospital founded for the sick knights and soldiers, called Bron-bhearg, or the House of Sorrowful Soldier."-O'Hallo ran's Introduction, &c. part. i. chap 5.

19 On Lough-Neagh's bank, as the fisherman strays.

It was an old tradition, in the time of Giraldus, that Lough-Neagh bad 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. ii. c. 9.

20 The song of Fionnuala.

To make this story intelligible in a song, would require a much greater number of verses than any one is authorized 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.

21 And daylight and liberty bless the young flower. Mrs H. Tighe, in her exquisite lines on the Lily, has applied this image to a still more important subject.

22 Oh! blame not the bard.

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 gave 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 dorn and beautify virtue "

23 Might have bent a proud bow, to the warrior's dart.

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, for the constant broils therein for 400 years, was now become the Land of Concord."-Lloyd's State Worthies, Art. The Lord Grandison.