es, they would make it answer my
purpose. Well, your hanner, without much stickling I gave up my Popery,
joined the Orange lodge, learned the Orange tunes, and became a regular
Protestant boy, and truly the Orange men kept their word, and made it
answer my purpose. O the meat and drink I got, and the money I made by
playing at the Orange lodges and before the processions when the Orange
men paraded the streets with their Orange colours. And O, what a day for
me was the glorious first of July when with my whole body covered with
Orange ribbons I fiddled "Croppies Lie Down"--"Boyne Water," and the
"Protestant Boys" before the procession which walked round Willie's
figure on horseback in College Green, the man and horse all ablaze with
Orange colours. But nothing lasts under the sun, as your hanner knows;
Orangeism began to go down; the Government scowled at it, and at last
passed a law preventing the Protestant boys dressing up the figure on the
first of July, and walking round it. That was the death-blow of the
Orange party, your hanner; they never recovered it, but began to despond
and dwindle, and I with them, for there was scarcely any demand for
Orange tunes. Then Dan O'Connell arose with his emancipation and repale
cries, and then instead of Orange processions and walkings, there were
Papist processions and mobs, which made me afraid to stir out, lest
knowing me for an Orange fiddler, they should break my head, as the boys
broke my leg at Donnybrook fair. At length some of the repalers and
emancipators knowing that I was a first-rate hand at fiddling came to me,
and tould me, that if I would give over playing "Croppies Lie Down" and
other Orange tunes, and would play "Croppies Get Up," and what not, and
become a Catholic and a repaler, and an emancipator, they would make a
man of me--so as my Orange trade was gone, and I was half-starved, I
consinted, not however till they had introduced me to Daniel O'Connell,
who called me a credit to my country, and the Irish Horpheus, and
promised me a sovereign if I would consint to join the cause, as he
called it. Well, your hanner, I joined with the cause and became a
Papist, I mane a Catholic once more, and went at the head of processions,
covered all over with green ribbons, playing "Croppies Get Up," "Granny
Whale," and the like. But, your hanner; though I went the whole hog with
the repalers and emancipators, they did not make their words good by
making a man of me