"Dear Old Ireland." This ballad, by T.D. Sullivan, tells in
stirring verses and chorus, set to a rousing air, of some of the
habits and customs of Ireland, and of the affection she inspires. One
verse runs:--

"We've seen the wedding, and the wake, the pattern and the fair,
The well-knit frames at the grand old games in the kindly
Irish air;
The loud 'Hurroo,' we've heard it, too; and the thundering
'Clear the way!'
Ah, dear old Ireland, gay old Ireland, Ireland, boys, hurrah."

It was not the first time that the song was heard on a field of
battle. On that night in December, 1863, in the American Civil War,
when the Federals and Confederates were bivouacked on the banks of the
Rappahannock awaiting the dawn to commence the bloody fight for
Fredericksburg, an Irish regiment in the service of the North sang the
song as they sat by their camp fires. Was that a tremendous echo that
came across the river?--

"For Ireland, boys, hurrah; for Ireland, boys, hurrah!
Here's dear old Ireland; fond old Ireland--
Ireland, boys, hurrah!"

The Irishmen of the North listened intently. Then it came upon them
with wild surprise that the chorus had been taken up by an Irish
regiment in the service of the South!

The officers of the Dublin Fusiliers at Cambrai were not scandalised,
nor did they put on a severe air, when they heard these rebelly songs,
survivals of a dead past, and yet deeply moving for the national
memories clustering round them. On the contrary, like good regimental
officers, they welcomed them, as they would probably have welcomed
anything that helped to raise the hearts of their men in their hour of
trial. "As my old brother-officer observes," says the writer of the
letter, "'These confounded Fenians can fight. Four times within one
hour my blackguards drove a charge home with the bayonet.'"

That day was a most critical one for the British. The Second Army
Corps was streaming southwards. But Von Kluck was making a determined
effort to outflank and envelop the First Army Corps. The Corps escaped
the net with the loss of one of their finest regiments, the 2nd
Munster Fusiliers, killed, wounded, and made prisoners. It was the
most tragic event of the retreat. A day or two previously the Munsters
were entrenched behind six guns of Field Artillery. Uhlans swept down
upon the battery and killed the gunners. Then two companies of the
Munsters charged with fixed bayonets