“The Memory of the Dead”

Description

"Who fears to speak of Ninety-Eight? Who blushes at the name?" The listeners are urged to recall the soldiers of the Irish rebellion, and to cherish their values

Notes

According to Robert Kee in _The Most Distressful Country_ (being Volume I of _The Green Flag_), p. 203, this poem served to rehabilitate Ireland's memory of the 1798 rebellion, which at the time it was published "had been under a polite historical cloud for nearly half a century."

In an irony pointed out by the semi-parody "The Orange Yeomanry of '98," it was initially published anonymously. - RBW

Historical references

• 1798 - the 1798 Rebellion

Same tune

• Easter Week (The Song of 1916) (Kathleen Hoagland, editor, One Thousand Years of Irish Poetry (New York, 1947), pp. 263-264)

Cross references

• cf. "The Orange Yeomanry of '98" (lyrics)

References

1. O'Conor, pp. 48-49, "The Memory of the Dead" (1 text)
2. Zimmermann 51, "The Memory of the Dead" (1 text, 1 tune)
3. Moylan 136, "The Memory of the Dead" (1 text, 1 tune)
4. PGalvin, pp. 39-40, "The Memory of the Dead" (1 text, 1 tune)
5. DT, MEMRYDED*
6. ADDITIONAL: Edward Hayes, The Ballads of Ireland (Boston, 1859), Vol I, pp. 276-277, "The Memory of the Dead"
7. Kathleen Hoagland, editor, One Thousand Years of Irish Poetry (New York, 1947), pp. 505-506, "The Memory of the Dead (1798)" (1 text)
8. H. Halliday Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy (London, 1888), pp. 63-64, 501, "The Memory of the Dead"
9. Charles Sullivan, ed., Ireland in Poetry, p. 90, "The Memory of the Dead" (1 text)
10. Donagh MacDonagh and Lennox Robinson, _The Oxford Book of Irish Verse_ (Oxford, 1958, 1979), pp. 80-82, "The Memory of the Dead" (1 text)
11. BI, PGa039