t length some Orange men getting acquainted with
me, and liking my style of playing, invited me to their lodge, where they
gave me to drink and tould me that if I would change my religion, and
join them, and play their tunes, 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. Oh 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 oh, 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 cridit 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 wit