OCR Text |
Show OLQ NAPPER TANDY. The other evening in front of the Kenyon hotel a band discoursed a medley. To our delight it rendered "The Wearing of the Green." It seemed like a hundred years since we heard it, since we "met old Napper Tandy and took him by the hand." When Ihe song first came out, the delusion obtained ob-tained that "Napper Tandy" was another name for Napoleon Bonaparte, and this because the Irish built great hopes on the "Little Corporal" aiding them in a struggle for independence. A paragraph in the Dublin Freeman for the first time enlightens Americans about the real personality per-sonality of Napper Tandy. It mentions the last Monday in August as the hundredth anniversary of the death of James Napper Tandy, whose name is inseparably connected with the fine old ballad, "The Wearin' o' the Green." In early life Napper Tandy was an ironmonger at Dublin, and in 1774 be became president of a club called the "Society of Free Citizens," held at the King's Arm Inn, adjoining ad-joining Smock Alley Theatre. He was in command of the Liberal Brigade of Artilery in 17S3, and was secretary of the Dublin United Irishmen, his locum tenens being YV olfe Tone. About the end of March, 1795, he fled from Ireland, and resided at Wilmington, Pa., from 1790 to 1798, when he returned re-turned to France, and was made a general of division di-vision by Bonaparte. After the defeat of Humbert, Tandy embarked from Rathin Island and was arrested ar-rested at Hamburg. He died at Bordeaux on Aug. 24, 1S03. |