"I walked through Ballinderry in the springtime/ When the bud was on the tree..." So begins Samuel Ferguson's august Lament for Thomas Davis, one of the noblest tributes to a great man. The bud is on the tree now, but the following arises because of queries by a young student on the recent quotation here of Davis's words, "What matter that at different shrines,/ We pray unto one God?" Relevant to the current breezes about an Orange march or demonstration in Dawson Street, Dublin. The young man was interested to read how much of the thoughts and words of the Young Irelanders of a century-and-a-half ago were concerned with this hoped-for meshing of the two traditions, illustrated in our flag by the two colours with white between them indicating peace. In the foreword to a commemorative book published in 1945, Thomas Davis 1845-1945, edited by M. J. MacManus, then literary editor of The Irish Press, Sean T. O'Kelly, our second president after Douglas Hyde, wrote: "In our time we have seen many of the objects of Young Irelanders achieved. But that blending of Orange and Green which was one of Davis's dearest ambitions has yet to be accomplished." Understatement indeed. And Davis's position in this country is further underpinned by a quotation from Arthur Griffith: "The prophet I followed throughout my life, the man whose words and teachings I tried to translate into practice in politics, the man whom I revered above all Irish patriots was Thomas Davis."
He died so young, aged 31, on September 16th, 1845. But in his time he sowed the seeds of a broad, all-encompassing sense of nationality. To the lines "what matter that at different shrines" there is a positive message which Dublin could well absorb - at least those who object to this forthcoming Orange march. And many who see the good sense of the Lord Mayor's invitation think of the Order as a body that has grown more arrogant and aggressive over the years of Stormont power. But, listen to Davis again in the last verse of that poem which is entitled Celts and Saxons. "We do not hate, we never cursed,/ Nor spoke a foeman's word/ Against a man in Ireland nursed,/ Howe'er we thought he erred;/ But start not, Irish born man,/ If you're to Ireland true,/ We heed not race, nor creed nor clan,/ We've hearts and hands for you."
And what is the heading of the next poem in this anthology of his prose and poems? "Orange and Green Will Carry The Day." We'll see. We'll wait and see, and keep our eyes and thoughts and prayers on the process going on in the North.