And her appellation was the Colleen Fhune.”
The song that all the boys and girls in the house had, was the song of “The Battle of Ross.” It was composed by John Collins, of Myross, a man of some fame as a Gaelic scholar and poet, who wrote the Gaelic poem on Timoleague Abbey. “The Battle of Ross” was fought about the year 1800. I suppose it was no regular battle, but the little boys at our side of the house used to celebrate the victory of it every July 12, and march through the lanes and streets, with twigs and rods as guns, upon their shoulders.
Most of the grown people of my day remembered the battle. At the time of its occurrence the towns of Cork were famed for their societies of Orangemen,—men who were born in Ireland, but who were sworn to uphold the foreign rule of England in their native land. They were schooled, and the like of them are to-day schooled, into believing that only for the protecting power of England, the Catholics of Ireland would kill the Protestants of Ireland. These Orangemen societies grew strong in many places, and became so aggressive and so fostered and patronized by the English governors, that they acted as if their mission was the English mission of rooting the old Irish race out of Ireland altogether. The spirit that harmonized with their education was the spirit expressed by those words painted on the gates of the town of Bandon:
“Turk, Jew or Atheist may enter here, but not a papist.”
Of that it is said that some one wrote under it these words:
“Whoever wrote that wrote it well,
For the same is written on the gates of hell.”
But about this battle of Ross that is celebrated in song by John Collins, I may as well let the poet tell the story of it in those words of his that are sung to the air of “The Boyne Water.”
July the twelfth in ancient Ross
There was a furious battle.