A Nation Once Again (Traditional). 71.29 rpm.

Lx 1565     Regal G 5002 



God Save Ireland (Root). 72.00 rpm.

Lx 1566          Regal G 5002                     
    

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"A Nation Once Again" is a song written in the early to mid-1840s by Thomas Osborne Davis (1814–1845). Davis was a founder of Young Ireland, an Irish movement whose aim was for Ireland to gain independence from Britain.

Davis believed that songs could have a strong emotional impact on people. He wrote that "a song is worth a thousand harangues". He felt that music could have a particularly strong influence on Irish people at that time. He wrote: "Music is the first faculty of the Irish... we will endeavour to teach the people to sing the songs of their country that they may keep alive in their minds the love of the fatherland."[1]

"A Nation Once Again" was first published in The Nation on 13 July 1844 and quickly became a rallying call for the growing Irish nationalist movement at that time.

The song is a prime example of the "Irish rebel music" subgenre. The song's narrator dreams of a time when Ireland will be, as the title suggests, a free land, with "our fetters rent in twain". The lyrics exhort Irish people to stand up and fight for their land: "And righteous men must make our land a nation once again".

It has been recorded by many Irish singers and groups, notably John McCormack, The Clancy Brothers, The Dubliners, The Wolfe Tones (a group with Republican leanings) in 1972, the Poxy Boggards, and The Irish Tenors (John McDermott, Ronan Tynan, Anthony Kearns) and Sean Conway for a 2007 single. In the Beatles' movie A Hard Day's Night, Paul McCartney's Irish grandfather begins singing the song at the British police officers after they arrest him for peddling autographed pictures of the band members.

In 2002, after an orchestrated e-mail campaign,[2][3] the Wolfe Tones' 1972 rendition of "A Nation Once Again" was voted the world's most popular song according to a BBC World Service global poll of listeners, ahead of "Vande Mataram",[4] the national song of India.

Davis copied the melody for the chorus from the second movement of Mozart's clarinet concerto.[citation needed] Famously, Winston Churchill used this phrase in an attempt to get Ireland to join forces with the British during World War II. Churchill said ‘now or never. A nation once again’ proposing that if Ireland joined forces with Britain then a united Ireland would be the reward. The Irish Prime Minister Éamon de Valera did not respond to Winston Churchill's telegram.[5]

Lyrics
The lyrics use a simple ABABCDCD rhyme scheme, with verses of eight lines, and alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. Davis describes how he learned of ancient fighters for freedom as a boy — the three hundred Spartans who fought at the Battle of Thermopylae. The "three men" may refer to Horatius Cocles and his two companions who defended the Sublician Bridge, a legend recounted in Macaulay's poem "Horatius, published as part of the Lays of Ancient Rome, in 1842, or alternatively to the three assassins of Julius Caesar (Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus and Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus) who aimed to preserve the Roman Republic from tyranny. He relates this to his own hopes that Ireland may yet be freed, and be no longer a British "province" but a nation of its own. The use of the term "once again" refers to Gaelic Ireland, the pre-modern island of Gaelic culture largely independent of foreign control. Davis mentions his belief that only moral, religious men could set Ireland free, and his own aims to make himself worthy of such a task.

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!

A Nation once again,
A Nation once again,
And Ireland, long a province, be
A Nation once again!

And from that time, through wildest woe,
That hope has shone a far light,
Nor could love's brightest summer glow
Outshine that solemn starlight;
It seemed to watch above my head
In forum, field and fane,
Its angel voice sang round my bed,
A Nation once again!

A Nation once again,
A Nation once again,
And Ireland, long a province, be
A Nation once again!

It whisper'd too, that freedom's ark
And service high and holy,
Would be profaned by feelings dark
And passions vain or lowly;
For, Freedom comes from God's right hand,
And needs a Godly train;
And righteous men must make our land
A Nation once again!

A Nation once again,
A Nation once again,
And Ireland, long a province, be
A Nation once again!

So, as I grew from boy to man,
I bent me to that bidding
My spirit of each selfish plan
And cruel passion ridding;
For, thus I hoped some day to aid,
Oh, can such hope be vain?
When my dear country shall be made
A Nation once again!


John McCormack (14 June 1884 û 16 September 1945), was a world-famous Irish tenor and recording artist, celebrated for his perfomances of the operatic and popular song repertoires, and renowned for his flawless diction and superb breath control.[1]

Early life
John Francis McCormack was born in Athlone, Ireland, the fourth of eleven children of Andrew McCormack and Hannah Watson[2] on 14 June 1884, and was baptised in St. Mary's Church, Athlone on 23 June 1884. His parents were employed at the Athlone Woollen Mills.

John received his early education from the Marist Brothers in Athlone, and later attended Summerhill College, Sligo. In 1903 he won the coveted gold medal in the Dublin Feis Ceoil and it was this event which set him on his climb to success. John married Lily Foley in 1906 and the couple had two children, Cyril and Gwen.

[edit] Career
Fundraising enabled his voice to be trained under Sabbatini in Italy. In 1906 he made his operatic dTbut at the Teatro Chiabrera, Savona. In 1907 John McCormack made his first important operatic appearance at Covent Garden in Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, as its youngest principal tenor. In 1909 he launched his career in America. Michael Scott ("The Record of Singing" 1978) notes that at this stage of his career he should be considered a tenor of the Italian style - and he sang (and recorded) French operatic arias in the Italian language. Steane ("The Grand Tradition" 1971) stress that, for all his later devotion to the concert platform (and his Irish identity), he was for albeit a relatively brief period in essence an Italian operatic tenor.

In 1911, McCormack toured Australia after Nellie Melba engaged him, then at the height of his operatic career aged 27, as a star tenor for the Melba Grand Opera Season. He returned for concert tours in subsequent years.

By 1912 he began to turn his attention increasingly to the concert stage, where his voice quality and charisma ensured that he became the greatest lyric tenor of his day. He did not however retire from the operatic stage until 1923 in Monte Carlo (see biography below). Famous for his breath control, he could sing 64 notes on one breath in Mozart's Il Mio Tesoro.

He made numerous recordings, the first on phonograph cylinder in 1904. His most commercially successful series of records were those for the Victor Talking Machine Company in the 1910s and 1920s. He also regularly broadcast on the radio and appeared in a number of sound films.

John McCormack in the 5000 seat New York Hippodrome c.1915-1916McCormack was the first artist to record the World War I hit song It's a Long Way to Tipperary, in 1914. In addition to deeply felt sentimental airs, he presented an openly political face: his recording of The Wearing of the Green, a song about the Irish rebellion of 1798, gave encouragement to the 20th century movement for Irish Home Rule Bill and endorsed the Irish Nationalist estrangement from England. McCormack was particularly associated with the songs of Thomas Moore, notably The Harp That Once Through TaraÆs Halls, The Minstrel Boy, Believe Me If All (Those Endearing Young Charms), and The Last Rose of Summer.

In 1917 McCormack became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In June 1918 he donated $11,458 towards the USA's war effort in the First World War. By now his career was a huge financial success, earning millions in his lifetime from record sales and appearances, though he never was invited to sing at La Scala in Milan.

In 1927 McCormack moved into Moore Abbey, Monasterevan, County Kildare and lived an opulent life by Irish standards. He had central apartments in London and New York. He hoped that one of his racehorses, such as Golden Lullaby, would win the Epsom Derby, but was unlucky.

McCormack also bought Runyon Canyon in Hollywood in 1930 from Carman Runyon. McCormack fell in love with the estate while there filming Song 0' My Heart (1930)[3], an early all-talking, all-singing picture. McCormack's used his salary for this movie to purchase the estate and built a mansion he called 'San Patrizio', after Saint Patrick. McCormack and his wife lived in the mansion until they returned to England in 1938.

McCormack toured often, and in his absence the mansion was often rented out to celebrities such as Janet Gaynor and Charles Boyer. The McCormacks made many friends in Hollywood, among them Will Rogers, John Barrymore, Basil Rathbone, C. E. Toberman and the Dohenys. After his farewell tour of America in 1937, the McCormacks deeded the estate back to Carman Runyon expecting to return to the estate at a later date. World War II intervened and McCormack did not return.

McCormack ended his career at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1938. Ill with emphysema, he bought a house near the sea, "Glena" , Booterstown, Dublin.[4] He is buried in Deansgrange Cemetery.

Honours
He was much honoured and decorated for his services to the world of music. His greatest honour came in 1928, when he received the title of Papal Count from Pope Pius XI in recognition of his work for Catholic charities. His title as count was formally recognised by the Holy See and the Kingdom of Italy (from 1929).

To many people the highlight of McCormack's Irish career was his singing of CTsar Franck's Panis Angelicus to the thousands who thronged Dublin's Phoenix Park for the 1932 Eucharistic Congress.