The music’s ready, the morning’s bright,
    Step together left, right, left, right,
        We carry no gun,
        Yet devil a one
    But knows how to march in Tipperary O! 
    By twelves and sixteens on we go,
    Rank’d four deep in close order O! 
        For order’s the way
        To carry the day,
    March steadily, men of Tipperary O!

It is here introduced as a proof and a justification of what has been stated in reference to one great object of the projectors of the monster meetings.  Possibly it will be said that this is an admission of the truth of a charge frequently urged by Mr. O’Connell against the Nation and its writers, namely, that they having intentions of which he knew nothing, had committed him to breaches of the law, of which he was not only not guilty but not cognisant, but which by a perversion of judgment were given in proof against him at the celebrated State Trials.  It is quite true that they did entertain the intentions which he afterwards so vehemently repudiated.  But they never once concealed them.  In the Association, and where Mr. O’Connell was committed with them, they abstained from giving them utterance; but they did so because they felt bound to act in accordance with the resolution of that body.  And with respect to the proceedings of the Cashel meeting and the more wonderful and significant meetings that followed, they always submitted to him and had his entire sanction for every act done at and every line written for these meetings.  In fact, if he were in any way mistaken as to them, they were still more grievously deceived as to him.  All their acts and speeches were in the direction of their intentions; all his acts and speeches were in the same direction, and went further.  In truth, they believed that he fully concurred in the sentiments which they cared not to conceal, but which he had the cunning or caution not to avow.  One justification of this belief has been already given; another and a more pregnant one was the Mallow defiance which the greatest poet and the greatest sculptor of our time and nation have immortalised.  In reference to proofs not published, however conclusive, this history shall be silent.

Succeeding events shall be briefly glanced at only.  Some of them have already attained a place in history; and the scope of my narrative only embraces the facts, incidents and tendencies which led to an armed crisis and governed its explosion.  Meeting followed meeting in rapid succession, and each was marked by some signal manifestation of a healthier, holier and more resolute national purpose.  Numbers, calmness, order, obedience, bespoke an advanced discipline, and prefigured future victory.  The crowds that attended the Halls of the Association no longer consisted of idle brawlers; they were listening, thoughtful mechanics, conscious of the toil and danger that lay before them, and braced for the encounter.  Dignitaries of the church