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SPIRIT OF THE NATION.

11

XVI.

("NATION" LOQUITUR.)

"If stubborn and wilful, he still should refuse
To hear our just claims, or submit to our views,
And resolve, in his folly, to hold 'The Entail,'
Dan'll 'kick his Dumbarton,'^[1] for GRAINNE ṀAOL!"

Fag a Bealaċ.^[2]

A National Hymn, chaunted in full chorus at the Symposiacs of the Editors and Contributors of "The Nation."

I.

"Hope no more for fatherland,
All her ranks are thinned or broken;"
Long a base and coward band
Recreant words like these have spoken.
But We preach a land awoken,
A land of courage true and tried
As your fears are false and hollow;
Slaves and Dastards stand aside—
Knaves and Traitors, FAG A BEALAĊ!

II.

Know, ye suffering brethren ours,

Might is strong, but Right is stronger;

↑ Our printer's devil declares that this is a North British phrase for "The Seat of Honour!" How the Old Lady learned to talk Scotch it is not for us to explain.
↑ FAG A BEALAĊ, "Clear the road!" commonly but erroneously spelt Faugh a Ballagh, was the cry with which the clans of Connaught and Munster used in faction fights to come through a fair with high hearts and smashing shillelahs. The regiments raised in the South and West took their old shout with them to the Continent. The 88th, or Connaught Rangers, from their use of it, went generally by the name of "The Faugh a Ballagh Boys." Nothing, says Napier, in his History of the Peninsular War—nothing so startled the French soldiery as the wild yell with which the Irish regiments sprung to the charge; and never was that haughty and intolerant shout raised in battle, but a charge, swift as thought and fatal as flame, came with it, like a rushing incarnation of FAG A BEALAĊ!

[1] Our printer's devil declares that this is a North British phrase for "The Seat of Honour!" How the Old Lady learned to talk Scotch it is not for us to explain.

[2] FAG A BEALAĊ, "Clear the road!" commonly but erroneously spelt Faugh a Ballagh, was the cry with which the clans of Connaught and Munster used in faction fights to come through a fair with high hearts and smashing shillelahs. The regiments raised in the South and West took their old shout with them to the Continent. The 88th, or Connaught Rangers, from their use of it, went generally by the name of "The Faugh a Ballagh Boys." Nothing, says Napier, in his History of the Peninsular War—nothing so startled the French soldiery as the wild yell with which the Irish regiments sprung to the charge; and never was that haughty and intolerant shout raised in battle, but a charge, swift as thought and fatal as flame, came with it, like a rushing incarnation of FAG A BEALAĊ!

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