The breach of the treaty of Limerick was the beginning of the penal days. Its memory lives in the strains of "Limerick's Lamentation." In Scotland they call this air "Lochaber no More" and would fain believe it their own. Irish tradition assigns its composition to Miles O'Reilly, a famous harper of County Cavan, and, in all probability, it was carried over to Alba by Thomas Connellan, an Irish musician who became baillie of Edinboro. For this air Moore wrote the song "When Cold in the Earth Lies the Friend Thou Hast Loved." King William would have acted the part of a soldier and a gentleman; but his advisers were stronger than he. Only one-fifth of the land of the Jacobites was restored to its owners. William wanted to favor the Earl of Clancarty; but the grand jury of County Cork warned him that to do so would be prejudicial to the Protestant interest. As the Clancarty estates were in Protestant hands, the cogency of the reasoning is obvious. Well might David O'Bruder, the bard, exclaim: One single foot of land there is not left to us, even as alms from the state. No, not what one may make his bed upon; but the state will accord us the grace-strange-of letting us go to Spain to seek adventures. The state of native Irish was pitiable. A poet wrote while the war was still going on: The warriors are no better off than their clergy; they are being cut down and plundered by them [the English] every day. See all that are without a bed, except the furze of the mountains, the bent of the curragh, and the bog myrtle beneath their bodies. Under frost, under snow, under rain, under blasts of wind, without a morsel to eat but watercress, green grass, sorrel of the mountains or clover of the hills. Och! my pity to see their nobles forsaken. Some 20,000 soldiers left home rather than submit. "The Wild Geese" the people called them, after the feathered migrants which annually whiten the Irish shores and fly away to the South. They had fought for Ireland and been worsted. Now they must seek fortune in another clime. Most of them would never more see the cliffs of Erin. Yet exile seemed preferable to bondage, though the leave-taking was bitter. Mothers were parted from sons, wives from husbands. The Dublin "Intelligence," printed in 1691, tells with what circumstances of brutality the embarcation was carried out. The account says that Wahop, the officer in charge, "pretending to ship the soldiers in order, according to his lists of them, first carried the men on board. Many of the women, at the second return of the boats for the officers, catching hold to be carried on board, were dragged off with the boats and, through fearfulness, losing hold, were drowned. Others who yet held fast had their fingers cut off and came to the same miserable end, in sight of their husbands and relations." It used to be believed—and Bunting shared in the belief that the touching air known as "The Wild Geese " was sung by the women gathered on shore at this time. There is no reason why this should not be so. Certain it is that the references to the exiled soldiers in song and story are innumerable. A father who had lost his son by drowning cries out for grief that the youth had not sailed with the fighting men: My grief and my loss that you had not gone on shipboard, In company with Sir James, as the Wild Geese have done; Then my loving trust would be in God that I would have your company again And that the stormy sea should not become the marriage bed of my children. Ex. 41. The Wild Geese. But most of all had Ireland cause to mourn the loss of her bravest son, Patrick Sarsfield. The day of oppression had come and their protector was leaving them. They lamented his going and drew pictures of his triumphant return. A farewell, put into the mouth of an old soldier, broken by war, shows how the people felt. Not the whole of the poem is here given, but the pith and marrow of it. Who its author was we do not know. Farewell, O Patrick Sarsfield! May luck be on your path! Your camp is broken up; your work is marred for years; But you go to kindle into flame the King of France's wrath, Though you leave sick Erin in tears. Och! Ochone! May the white sun and moon rain glory on your head, Och! Ochone! I'll journey to the North, over mount, moor and wave. 'Twas there I first beheld, drawn up in file and line, The brilliant Irish hosts-they were the bravest of the brave; But alas! they scorned to combine. Och! Ochone! I saw the royal Boyne, when its billows flashed with blood. On the dark empurpled field of Aughrim too I stood, On the field of Tubberdonny's Well. Och! Ochone! But for you, Londonderry, may plague smite and slay Your people! May ruin desolate you, stone by stone. Through you many a gallant youth lies coffinless to-day, With the winds for mourners alone. Och! Ochone! How many a noble soldier, how many a cavalier, All hail to thee, Ben Edar! But ah! on thy brow On the Bridge of the Boyne was our first overthrow; Och! Ochone! In the service of France Sarsfield well justified the reputation he had won in Ireland. He took part in the defeat of his old enemy, William, at Steenkirk and was complimented by the Marechal de Luxembourg, the French commander. Louis the Fourteenth made him camp marshal. But his glorious career was cut short by death. He was stricken by a ball on the field of Landen, in 1693, and, when he saw the blood flow, he cried out in the grief of his heart, "O! that this were for Ireland." For half a cen |