Irish Melodies/Let Erin remember the days of old

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Oh! weep for the hour

Irish Melodies
Thomas Moore

Let Erin remember the days of old

Silent, oh Moyle! be the roar of thy water

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2912400Irish Melodies — Let Erin remember the days of oldThomas Moore

LET ERIN REMEMBER THE DAYS OF OLD.

I.

Let Erin remember the days of old,
Ere her faithless sous betray'd her;
When Malachi wore the collar of gold*^[1],
Which he won from her proud invader;
When her kings, with standard of green unfurl'd
Led the Red-Branch Knights to danger†^[2];
Ere the emerald gem of the western world
Was set in the crown of a stranger.

II.

On Lough Neagh's bank as the fisherman strays*^[3],
When the clear, cold eve's declining,
He sees the round towers of other days,
In the wave beneath him shining!
Thus shall memory often, in dreams sublime,
Catch a glimpse of the days that are over;
Thus, sighing, look thro' the waves of time
For the long faded glories they cover!

↑ "This brought on an encounter between Malachi (the Monarch of Ireland in the tenth century) and the Danes, in which Malachi defeated two of their champions, whom he encountered successively hand to hand, taking a collar of gold from the neck of one, and carrying off the sword of the other, as trophies of his victory." Warner's History of Ireland, Vol. 1. Book 9.
↑ "Military orders of knights were very early established in Ireland; long before the birth of Christ we find an hereditary order of Chivalry in Ulster, called Curaidhe na Craoibhe ruadh, or the knights of the Red Branch, from their chief seat in Emania, adjoiniug to the palace of the Ulster kings, called Teagh na Craoibhe ruadh, or the Academy of the Bed Branch; and contiguous to which was a large hospital, founded for the sick knights and soldiers, called Bron-bhearg, or the house of the sorrowful soldier." O'Halloran's Introduction, &c. Part I. Chap. 5.
↑ It was an old tradition, in the time of Giraldus, that Lough Neagh had been originally a fountain, by whose sudden over-flowing the country was inundated, and a whole region, like the Atlantis of Plato, overwhelmed. He says that the fishermen, in clear weather, used to point out to strangers the tall ecclesiastical towers under the water. Piscatores aquae illius turres ecclesiasticas, quce more patrice arctce sunt et altae, necnon et rotunda, sub undis manifeste, sereno tempore conspiciunt et extraneis transeuntibus, reique causas admirantibus, frequenter ostendunt.
Topogr. Hib. Dist 2. C. 9.

[1] "This brought on an encounter between Malachi (the Monarch of Ireland in the tenth century) and the Danes, in which Malachi defeated two of their champions, whom he encountered successively hand to hand, taking a collar of gold from the neck of one, and carrying off the sword of the other, as trophies of his victory." Warner's History of Ireland, Vol. 1. Book 9.

[2] "Military orders of knights were very early established in Ireland; long before the birth of Christ we find an hereditary order of Chivalry in Ulster, called Curaidhe na Craoibhe ruadh, or the knights of the Red Branch, from their chief seat in Emania, adjoiniug to the palace of the Ulster kings, called Teagh na Craoibhe ruadh, or the Academy of the Bed Branch; and contiguous to which was a large hospital, founded for the sick knights and soldiers, called Bron-bhearg, or the house of the sorrowful soldier." O'Halloran's Introduction, &c. Part I. Chap. 5.

[3] It was an old tradition, in the time of Giraldus, that Lough Neagh had been originally a fountain, by whose sudden over-flowing the country was inundated, and a whole region, like the Atlantis of Plato, overwhelmed. He says that the fishermen, in clear weather, used to point out to strangers the tall ecclesiastical towers under the water. Piscatores aquae illius turres ecclesiasticas, quce more patrice arctce sunt et altae, necnon et rotunda, sub undis manifeste, sereno tempore conspiciunt et extraneis transeuntibus, reique causas admirantibus, frequenter ostendunt.
Topogr. Hib. Dist 2. C. 9.

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