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STORIES OF |
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FAREWELL," " LORD MAYO," " THE MONKS OF THE SCREW," " RORY o'MOORE," a GARRYOWEN'," " WEARING OF THE GREEN," AND STREET SONGS
T HE congenial task is not always the easiest to accomplish. Ireland has produced so many poets, major and minor, racy of the soil, and indigenous of the best traditions, that it is some-what difficult to know which to include and which to exclude. So many of the ancient songs of Ireland that are quite unknown, except to the initiated few, possess so much historical and domestic interest that it is quite distressing to the conscientious scribe to be compelled, acting in accordance with the plan laid down, to omit them. Had Irish chroniclers been as Industrious as'have been the Scottish, English people would not have remained so long in Ignorance of the magnificent store of legendary, historical, political, pathetic and humorous bal-lads and lyrics which is so near at hand, but which has never been properly investigated and explored; never been thoroughly collected and collated for the benefit of Great Britain at large. There are numberless collections of Irish songs, it is true, published under more or less un-national, fanciful titles, but an injudicious enthusiasm has monopolized the common sense
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