The name Donegal has a significance to the Royal Navy that is all its own. It was designated by the Admiralty as a county cruiser name, for one of the ships of the _Kent_ and _Monmouth_ group; but there is more than that behind the name. _Donegal_ lettered on the stern of a man-of-war has its own traditions—associations of a yet wider interest to the British fleet. The name, as a fact, owes its appearance on the Navy List to a very special occasion. H.M.S. _Donegal_, in its origin, is only incidentally connected with County Donegal. The cruiser through her name stands, in fact, to remind the world that the Royal Navy does not “fear to speak of ’98.” It is quite a little drama how this particular man-of-war name first came to make its appearance on the roll of the British fleet; and in that form, perhaps, one may most effectively tell the story—as a sort of pageant, bringing the details forward in, as it were, a series of tableaux. * * * * * First we have the opening scene, in bustling Paris, in the month of August, 1798, something after this fashion: The Marseillaise is pealing! the crowds are mad with joy, With flags and failtë fêting the gallant Paris Boy, Who leads the bright procession of Frenchmen gay and bold?, The Students of the Quarter, the Latin Quarter Old;— They’re girt with dainty rapiers, they’re gloved with gloves of white, The knightly Gallic Swordsmen who love the People’s Right! They bear in bright procession a pledge from France’s shore, The busts of Hoche and Humbert beneath the Tricolour! Then we have a September scene far away. We are now among the wild, unkempt kerns and peasants of County Donegal, in their villages and rude moorland huts of turf and boulders, dotted among the lonely valleys far away amid the bare, desolate, wind-swept uplands and bleak, gaunt, long-backed ridges, shrouded for half the year in rolling grey mists from off the ocean, that range along the coasts of North-Western Ireland. Everywhere the men are hard at work, seated in groups round their peat fires, all actively engaged in pointing pikes and grinding axes, lashing scythe-blades to short poles, and putting a fresh edge to ugly crooked knives; crooning to themselves the while over their toil:— Oh, the Frinch are on the say, Says the Shan Van Voght— Oh, the Frinch are on the say, Says the Shan Van Voght— The Frinch are in the Bay, They’ll be here without delay, And the Orange will decay, Says the Shan Van Voght.