A (New) Nation Once Again: Thomas Davis and “The Songs of Ireland” Eric Patterson When boyhood's fire was in my blood  I read of ancient freemen,  For Greece and Rome who bravely stood,  Three hundred men and three men;  And then I prayed I yet might see  Our fetters rent in twain,  And Ireland, long a province, be.  A Nation once again! Introduction Thomas Davis made an impact upon the stage of Irish nationalism out of all proportion to the amount of time actually spent on that stage. While his work, especially his efforts as one of the part owners, editors, and writers for The Nation, of necessity moved across a broad range of topics, this paper will examine Davis’ observations on the appropriate role of Irish music in service of the nationalist cause and the changes which would need, in his opinion, to occur for contemporary music to fulfill that role. Specifically, we will examine his essay titled “The Songs of Ireland,” written in either 1844 or 1845 and published posthumously in a collection of essays in 1846. Biography and Context To properly understand Davis’ commentary on Irish nationalist music it would be helpful to first establish some pertinent points about the man himself. Davis was born in 1815 to an English father and a mother who was half Anglo-Irish and half Gaelic Irish. His father died when he was very young, and he was raised with his mother’s family in County Cork. He studied at Trinity College, reading for honors in philosophy, where he was noted as a diligent student who studied far outside of his required field. He passed the bar in 1838 although, like Pearse decades later, he never practiced law. Also like Pearse, he never married, although in Davis’ case this was more attributable to his early and unexpected death from scarlet fever in 1845 at the age of only thirty years. Moody, 5-6 His entry into nationalist politics started with his presidency of the Trinity College Historical Society, where, in his outgoing speech in 1840 and much to the surprise of his audience, he declared his faith in Irish nationality. His was, however, not a divisive and secular approach to nationalism. At Trinity, he had met and mingled with a variety of Protestants and Catholics whom he viewed as equals and with whom he formed lasting friendships. Thus, his political worldview became one of devoted Irish nationalism which rejected sectarian politics and which focused narrowly upon the repeal of the Act of Union. Moody, 6-8 His entry into nationalistic journalism came with the Dublin Morning Register in 1841 along with partner John Blake Dillon. Previously a “tame and orthodox Whig journal,” Moody, 8 its readers and owners were shocked by the nationalist character injected by Davis and Dillon, and their tenure was terminated after only four months. In April 1841, they both joined O’Connell’s National Repeal Association. In autumn 1841, Davis found a new ally in the person of Charles Gavan Duffy and joined forces with him to establish, in October 1842, a new national weekly journal, The Nation. The staff of The Nation would eventually be comprised of many who would become leaders in the nationalist movement of Young Ireland, to include staff poet James Mangan. Moody, 12-14 Within the National Repeal Association movement, a split began to emerge between O’Connell and the members of Young Ireland, to include Davis. O’Connell’s absolute commitment to pacifism met with argument on the part of the Young Ireland clique, who would not rule out a possible future exception to this pacifist approach under the right circumstances. In May 1845, a total break with O’Connell occurred, and Davis wept as he stood in a public meeting and disagreed with his beloved mentor. His own main point of contention with O’Connell was an admixture of a rejection of pacifism and, more importantly, and ardent rejection of O’Connell’s partisan politics which sought to pit Catholic against Protestant. Within months of that split, though, Davis unexpectedly died following a bout of scarlet fever. Moody, 16-18 “The Songs of Ireland” In this essay published after his death, Davis set out to accomplish three main tasks: to review the catalog of recent and contemporary Irish music, to offer his sentiments on its nationalistic failings, and to provide detailed technical advice as to how to remedy that error. This paper will focus especially upon Davis’ nationalistic objectives within these self-appointed tasks; that is, his explanation of why recent Irish patriotic music would simply not well serve the nationalistic and ecumenical philosophy of Young Ireland, and what changes to lyrical content would be required to achieve that end. In describing the musical material available to Ireland, and specifically to Young Ireland, in 1844, Davis noted that ““[Irish songs] composed during the last [18th] century [were notable only in that] their structure is irregular, their grief slavish and despairing, their joy reckless and bombastic, their religion bitter and sectarian, their politics Jacobite and concealed by extravagant and tiresome allegory.” Davis, 225 On the very next page of his essay, he adds that There is one want, however, in all [italics original] Irish songs – it is of strictly national lyrics. They are national in form and colour, but clannish in opinion [with]…no thought of an Irish nation…these songs celebrate M’Carthy, or O’More, O’Connor or O’Neill…they cry down his Irish neighbor as fiercely as they do the foreign oppressor. Davis, 226 It should be clear to anyone familiar with medieval and early modern Irish history just what it is that caused Davis’ lament. As of 1844, Ireland still had yet to experience anything close to a national government, other than the one imposed by the Normans/Britons. As such, even any degree of shared national culture would, in its political expression and manifestation, exhibit the tribal divisions which typified Gaelic Ireland, wherein the poets and bards of Gaelic culture would have generally been writing under the patronage of a sponsoring chieftain or king. Thus, Davis in his essay called for music in support of something which had never existed: not just a unified Irish political nation, but also since the introduction of Anglicanism and Protestantism, a unified national political culture. Of this type of song, Davis assured the reader, there were but a few good examples at hand in 1844. Davis, 228 He closed his essay with a call to action for all modern bards and poets to produce a suitably unified nationalistic musical catalog with inclusive lyrics and the ability to resound across any clan division. Historical Precedent: United Irishmen and Music At least some recent research, however, would seem to indicate that Davis may have been a bit hasty in his characterizations, or perhaps at least a bit too particular in his musical tastes. Boydell, in his article “The United Irishmen, music, harps, and national identity” observes that the politically-inclined musicians from this earlier political era had in fact made some effective use of a similarly nationalist and inclusive songbook. As stated by Boydell, many of the founding members of the United Irishmen were intimately involved in or associated with contemporary antiquarian and cultural interests and they made considerable and conscious use of songs as a means of spreading their ideas. Boydell, 44/45 Boydell informs us that it was the ‘fortunate’ loss of lyrics to earlier Irish tunes which allowed for the overlay of the properly contemporary political sentiments: “a blessing because old tunes were like empty slates upon with Anglo-Irish dramatists, or Volunteer or United Irish writers, could impose new words and meaning,” Boydell, 46/467, quoting Thuente and that as a result the “union of Irish music and English-language texts [reflected] the Patriotic ideals of inclusiveness.” Boydell, 48 Finally, Boydell notes that this sense of political inclusiveness found in the era of the United Irishmen was largely brought to an end by the Act of Union in 1800; so, while such ecumenical political tunes may have indeed existed prior to the time of Davis and Young Ireland, it is therefore understandable that Davis felt the need to revive and rejuvenate the musical offerings of his era. “Is This Song About You?” In 2002, Dr. Harry White of the Department of Music, University College Dublin, published an article titled “Is This Song About You? Some Reflections on Music and Nationalism in Germany and Ireland.” While much of this work is about the former country in the title, there are more than sufficient aspects of the article covering the latter country for White’s insights to be relevant to this study of Davis and his essay. White introduces his paper as one which examines the “rules or laws which appear to govern the reception and indeed the perception of music…[especially with] respect [to] nationalism,” while also framing his perspective by way of the observation that “if nationalism is the venom of our age, if it has brought Europe to the edge of ruin, it has also, manifestly, connoted freedom, self-determination, the preservation of liberty.” White, 132-133 He demonstrated by way of various examples in both Germany and Ireland how there was a deep-seated relationship between the emergence of the nation state and the concurrent use of music as a manifestation of that national power. However, and most interestingly given what is written above concerning the use of music in the eras of both the United Irishmen and Young Ireland, White put forward the claim that in most countries it is nationalism which stimulates nationalistic music, but that in Ireland it was the music which was deliberately designed to stimulate the political fervor. He extended this point when he wrote that “It is only where the nationalistic – and extra-musical – took precedence over the musical, that the process of assimilation broke down. As it did in Ireland.” White, 140 In other words, Davis was right to be concerned about O’Connell’s sectarian agenda, especially within the context of seeking inclusivity in the new national music of Ireland. However, I would offer that White subsequently incorrectly characterized this very point in his article when he wrote that, “The sentiments of heroic self-determination which the Irish song [A Nation Once Again] evinces – together with the integrity of sectarian culture which bound Young Ireland together – have become an idée fixe in Irish nationalism almost up to the present day.” White, 144 While Young Ireland undoubtedly had some portion of its membership who sought to stir sectarian Catholic anger, this paper has clearly demonstrated that Davis was most ardently opposed to divisiveness in Ireland along religious divides, both in his politics and in his political music. Conclusion Thomas Davis aptly characterized his own lyrical advice when he authored the patriotic anthem “A Nation Once Again.” By linking Irish politics of the mid-nineteenth century to the classical era of the Greeks and Romans, he deftly side-stepped both the historical clan and family conflicts and the later Catholic/Protestant divide. In calling for Ireland to be a nation ‘once again,’ he boldly put forward the implicit assumption that the island had indeed been a nation at some point in the past, and had only to reclaim that antiquarian legacy. With the chorus, which repeats the song’s title with only the interjection of the qualifier ‘long a province,’ Davis directs all political opposition towards the external ‘other’ of England. As Davis urged, If men able to write will fling themselves gallantly and faithfully on their work we have here plotted for them, we shall soon have Fair and Theater, Concert and Drawingroom, Road and Shop, echoing with Songs bringing home Love, Courage, and Patriotism to every heart. Davis, 231 While he may not have approved of the eventual sectarian politics which led to and followed Irish independence, and may not have agreed with the rebel music of the twentieth century, Davis surely would be pleased to know that his own patriotic music is still very much a part of the Irish national songbook. Bibliography T.W. Moody, Thomas Davis and the Irish Nation Thomas Davis, The Songs of Ireland Barra Boydell, The United Irishmen, music, harps, and national identity Harry White, Is This Song about You? Some Reflections on Music and Nationalism in Germany and Ireland 8