As For The Words, Never Mind Where I Got Them; They
Are Violent Enough, But Not Half So Violent As The Words Of Some Of
The Songs Made Against The Irish Protestants By The Priests."
"Your hanner is an Orange man, I see.
Well, your hanner, the
Orange is now in the kennel, and the Croppies have it all their own
way."
"And perhaps," said I, "before I die, the Orange will be out of the
kennel and the Croppies in, even as they were in my young days."
"Who knows, your hanner? and who knows that I may not play the old
tune round Willie's image in College Green, even as I used some
twenty-seven years ago?"
"Oh then you have been an Orange fiddler?"
"I have, your hanner. And now as your hanner has behaved like a
gentleman to me I will tell ye all my history. I was born in the
city of Dublin, that is in the village of Donnybrook, as I tould
your hanner before. It was to the trade of bricklaying I was bred,
and bricklaying I followed till at last, getting my leg smashed,
not by falling off the ladder, but by a row in the fair, I was
obliged to give it up, for how could I run up the ladder with a
patten on my foot, which they put on to make my broken leg as long
as the other. Well your hanner, being obliged to give up my
bricklaying, I took to fiddling, to which I had always a natural
inclination, and played about the streets, and at fairs, and wakes,
and weddings. At 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.
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