Mononian in Victoria could do. This revelation would remain unmade had not my worthy friend returned to La belle France, and is not likely to revisit the Antipodes.
But to wind up these Chronicles without recounting the real origin of "Garryowen" might by some be deemed an unpardonable omission, and I therefore append a précis of the circumstances attending its birth and adoption as one of the National airs of Ireland:— Once on a time, and a very good time it was, to use the phraseology of ancient story-tellers, Limerick, the historic capital of Munster, had amongst its surroundings a picturesque suburb, in which abode an old fellow named Owen, who possessed some taste as an horticulturist, and founded a species of tea-garden, which soon grew into a favourite place of recreation on Sundays and holidays; for, supplementary to the flowers and the tea, a certain kind of home-made fluid, which never paid any excise duty, and was known as potheen (pot whisky), was surreptitiously introduced; so that with junketings, dancing, fiddling, bagpiping, and tippling, the proprietor succeeded in rendering his limited dominion such a pleasure-ground as made it a popular rendezvous for the light-hearted and fun-loving folk of both sexes so characteristic of the Limerick of the period. It was called "Garryowen"—Anglice—Owen's Garden— add after old Owe n was gathered to his fathers, the "garden" in process of years began to degenerate, and ultimately yielded to other and later sources of attraction. But there was something so unaccountably fascinating in the name that Limerick could not permit it to be obliterated, and so it got transferred to the street or suburb, which in course of time grew rather loose and boisterous in its habits; but "Garryowen" remains to this day, and will so for ever.
Gerald Griffin did something to perpetuate the name by writing of "Garryowen" as the birthplace of the never-to-be-forgotten Colleen Bawn, the heroine of his beautiful novel, "The Collegians." What was often a very rowdy quarter in reality owes its immortality to the singular fact that a miserable "larrikin" doggerel, misnamed a comic song, has been written, under the style and title of "Garryowen," to one of those thrilling Irish airs, so many of which had been wandering wordless for centuries through the musical traditions of the Irish people, until Moore and other bards of "green Erin of the streams" came to the rescue, and wedded some of them to melodies which will adorn the English language as long as it lives. The air is as old as the hills, and it was only in the middle of the last century that it was provided with an accompaniment—as grotesque and incompatible a union as if a blue-blooded spiritualized maiden were to be married to a rough, drinking, rowdy rake-hell. Though the so-called lyric (lie-ric) may be pronounced as virtually defunct, the tune is still alive, and will remain so. It was adopted as one of the standard favourites with military bands in the Old Country, was played on every modern battlefield whereIrishmen have helped to conquer, and has acquired a popularity simply indestructible.
From my childhood "Garryowen," as one of the most electrifying of the winged warblers of Irish minstrelsy, fluttered around me. It is the name of one of the most cherished of Hibernian musical airs, as old as the Milesians, and as popular as the famous trifolium ripens—
"The chosen leaf
Of bard and chief,
Old Erin's Native Shamrock !"
As I advanced in life, year by year, I heard it tuned thousands of times—played by military and amateur bands; and piped, fiddled, whistled, and danced to, publicly and privately, at all sorts of reunions, from a wedding to a "pattern," from a hurling match to a faction fight. When I emigrated, a schoolboy, to this country, I brought it with me as a cheap but treasured souvenir of the land I had left and still love; for that I am an Irishman, not only by birth but to the heart's core is a pride and pleasure for me at all opportune times to avow. I believe the grand Old Country of my nativity to be the dearest and brightest spot on all the great earth's surface; that it is, in the language of a once distinguished North-Irelander (Dr. Drennan), "the Emerald of Europe," and
"In the ring of the world the most precious stone—"
