Eugene Dunphy tells how four musicians tried to make an anthem out of one poem.

A Nation Once Again

Depending on who occupied the British throne at the time, ‘God Save the King’ or ‘God Save the Queen’ was usually played at most official events in Ireland. Post-Famine, however, a sea-change was underway, as evidenced by the many Press reports of Irish nationalist meetings and rallies, which often ended with the band playing ‘St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning’ or with the crowd singing ‘A Nation Once Again’. The words of the latter were written by Thomas Davis who, along with Charles Gavan Duffy and John Blake Dillon, founded in 1842 the Dublin Weekly Nation (‘the Nation’), a newspaper with strong Young Irelander leanings.

Born on the 14th of October 1814, in Mallow, County Cork, as a young man Thomas Davis studied Greek and Roman classics, and graduated with a Degree in Logic from Trinity College, Dublin. Between 1836 and 1838 he studied law in England and Europe, but finally decided against pursuing a career as a lawyer. ‘A Nation Once Again’ – a phrase oft quoted by Daniel O’Connell (‘the Liberator’) – was first published on the 13th of July 1844, on page seven of ‘the Nation’. Davis’s knowledge of ancient history is clearly evident in the first verse, when he mentions ‘three hundred men and three men’, a reference to the Battle of Thermopylae of 480BC, when three hundred Greeks and three Romans fell in battle.

In January 1845, Davis’s verses were included in The Spirit of the Nation, a collection of old and new nationalist songs published by James Duffy, 23 Anglesea Street, Dublin. For the first time, A Nation Once Again was accompanied by a rather complex melody, the anonymous composer of which used a single repetition of the last line of each stanza as a chorus. Three more musicians would attempt to better the melody – more of this anon. Unfortunately, Davis would not live to see the day when his song would gain a firm foothold in Ireland; he died aged thirty from scarlet fever, on the 16th of September 1845.

In the late 1860s, Timothy Daniel Sullivan’s ‘God Save Ireland’ became increasingly favoured as the unofficial Irish anthem, but in May 1878 Davis’s verses were given a new melodic garb, the work of Dublin-born journalist and part-time composer, Thomas Sherlock (1840-1901). Published in sheet music form by Charles Brown of Lower Gardiner Street, ‘the Nation’ warmly welcomed Sherlock’s setting, saying that it was ‘a catching one, and will be picked up readily after a hearing or two’, unlike the 1845 setting, which sounded ‘weak’ and ‘jiggy’. Eight years later, another musical setting was added to Davis’s lyrics, this time by Edward Comerford, a music teacher based in Church Street, Dundalk. ‘This has already been done by Thomas Sherlock’, quipped a Flag of Ireland reporter, who doubted if Comerford’s attempt would ever gain traction.

Moving on now to 1887, when A Nation Once Again was given a whole new lease of life by another Dubliner, James J. Johnson (c. 1830-1915). A seasoned musician and an ardent nationalist, in his early twenties Johnson was appointed organist and choirmaster to St. Audoen’s Catholic Church in High Street, and in the 1860s he fulfilled the same role at St. Catherine’s, Meath Street. Apart from playing and composing church music, he taught secular music at St. Joseph’s Blind Asylum in Drumcondra, gave piano and singing lessons from his music studio at 25 York Street, and played piano and organ accompaniment for visiting opera stars at the Theatre Royal in Hawkins Street. Having established a reputation for arranging Davis’s The West’s Asleep and Michael Joseph McCann’s O’Donnell Abú, Johnson excelled at crafting memorable tunes, so it’s no surprise that his original melody for A Nation Once Again became an overnight success – it would be recorded many years later by numerous artistes, including John McCormack, Seán Ó Riada, and the Dubliners.

Sheet music cover (published August, 1887)

Published by Cameron & Ferguson of Glasgow and London, Johnson’s A Nation Once Again included an unforgettable sing-along chorus. It sold like hot cakes, being snapped up by soloists and choirs alike, and had become so popular that in 1903, the sheet music was re-published. Some critics now claim that Johnson had borrowed heavily from the Adagio section of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major. True, the first six notes of the chorus sound remarkably similar to a phrase from the Adagio, but apart from that, Johnson’s melody was both fresh and original.

In April 1908, readers of the Irish Independent were discussing the constituent parts of a ‘good national song’, some calling for a lyric and melody similar in style to the American and French anthems. Writing from his home on Belvedere Road, Johnson offered his own thoughts on the subject, saying that the words for an Irish national anthem ought to be written by an Irish-born lyricist, and it was the job of the composer to study the words carefully so he can ‘bring out their true meaning’. Adding a barbed postscript to his letter, he asked ‘bandmasters and others’ who were playing or singing A Nation Once Again to be so kind as to include his name in their concert programmes.

Actor and dramatist T. W. Kerrigan could not speak highly enough of Johnson, his tribute published on the 23rd of May 1912, in the Dublin Evening Telegraph. It was a sign of ‘popular ingratitude’, said Kerrigan, that this eighty-two-year-old musician had received but ‘scant recognition’ in Ireland. James J. Johnson died on the 22nd of March 1915, at his home in Ardilaun Terrace, Dublin. As Kerrigan rightly stated, this was the man had single-handedly turned ‘the immortal poem of Thomas Davis’ into an anthemic gem.

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 there I prayed I yet might see,

Our fetters rent in twain;

And Ireland, long a province be,

A nation once again.

Chorus

A nation once again, a nation once again,

And Ireland, long a province be, a nation once again.

It whispered too, that freedom’s ark,

And service high and holy;

Would be prepared by feelings dark,

And passion 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.

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.

It whispered 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.

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 someday to aid,

Oh, can such hope be vain;

When my dear country should be made,

A nation once again.

Watch Eugene’s video on this ballad here:

Cork