An Dreoilín – 1895

Francis A. Fahy is a writer who seems to have struck the popular vein in his productions. Like Mr Graves, he has written a number of songs to familiar airs, and as they are all of the “catching order,” they sink deep in the fancy of the masses. In reading his songs one is struck with the peculiar domination of the national spirit in them, It is interwoven with every other sentiment of the poem and seems inseparable from his verse. Even in his songs of affection, begun in a tender strain, we hear the tread of the soldier and the jingle of his sabre.

He was born at Kinvara, County Galway on September 29, 1854, and entered the Civil Service in 1873. He has resided in London since that time, and has taken part in many Irish movements, notably the Southwark Irish Literary Club and its successor, the Irish Literary Society. At sixteen years of age he wrote a play “The Last of the O’Leary’s,” which was produced in his native town. In the same year his first printed poem appeared in the Nation. Since then he has contributed from time to time to nearly all the leading periodicals of Ireland and to many in England. Most of his writings appeared over the nom de plume of Dreoilín (the wren).