← Table of contents
Bits of Blarney

Note 18 — IRISH PUBLICISTS.

Reading edition

This celebrated toast, the drinking or refusal of which, for many years, was the great test of (political) Protestantism in Ireland, was drank on the knee, and ran thus: "The glorious, pious, and immortal memory of the great and good King William, Prince of Orange, who saved us from Pope and Popery, brass money and wooden shoes. He that don't drink this toast, may the north wind blow him to the south, and a west wind blow him to the east; may he have a dark night, a lee shore, a rank storm, and a leaky vessel to carry him over the ferry to hell; may the devil jump down his throat with a red-hot harrow, that every pin may tear out his inside; may he be rammed, jammed, and damned into the great gun of Athlone, and fired off into the kitchen of hell, where the Pope is roasted on a spit, and basted with the fat of Charles James Fox, while the Devil stands by pelting him with Cardinals!"

Explore with AITake your curiosity a little further.

Reading settings