solutions, and
adopted a petition to the Legislature, consisting of a single line,
something to this effect: "You have robbed us of our Parliament by fraud
and blood; pray restore it, or ----." And finally, Mr. O'Connell said at
the dinner that evening, alluding to an armed strife; "Give me Tipperary
for half a day." This simple wish, enunciated in accents familiar to
that great ruler of men, elicited a cheer, a shout, a wild burst of
enthusiasm, so long and loud as almost to suggest the idea that it would
be seconded by naked steel and a deadly blow. One would think it had a
significant meaning, and yet there was no wrathful ban. Not one
pronounced that terrible anathema against shedding a single drop of
blood, which afterwards became the canon of peaceful men. Nay, if memory
be not very treacherous, amidst that roar was loudly distinguishable
the voice of him who on an after day, yet to be spoken of, cursed from
God's altar those who wished to realise his simulated aspirations and in
the endeavour had forfeited their lives. A doggerel ballad had been
written for the occasion by Thomas Davis, to the air of the "Gallant
Tipperary," over which himself and his friends afterwards indulged in
many a hearty laugh. One verse runs as follows:--

The music's ready, the morning's bright,
Step together left, right, left, right,
We carry no gun,
Yet devil a one
But knows how to march in Tipperary O!
By twelves and sixteens on we go,
Rank'd four deep in close order O!
For order's the way
To carry the day,
March steadily, men of Tipperary O!

It is here introduced as a proof and a justification of what has been
stated in reference to one great object of the projectors of the monster
meetings. Possibly it will be said that this is an admission of the
truth of a charge frequently urged by Mr. O'Connell against the _Nation_
and its writers, namely, that they having intentions of which he knew
nothing, had committed him to breaches of the law, of which he was not
only not guilty but not cognisant, but which by a perversion of judgment
were given in proof against him at the celebrated State Trials. It is
quite true that they did entertain the intentions which he afterwards so
vehemently repudiated. But they never once concealed them. In the
Association, and where Mr. O'Connell was committed with them, they
abstained from giving them utterance; but they did so because they felt