It became known among the passengers on the _Moldavian_, an hour or so before bedtime on Sunday evening, April 23, 1865, that the lights to be seen in the larboard distance were really on the Irish coast. The intelligence ran swiftly through all quarters of the vessel. Its truth could not be doubted; the man on the bridge said that it truly was Ireland; and if he had not said so, the ship’s barber had. Excitement over the news reached its highest point in the steerage, two-thirds of the inmates of which hung now lovingly upon the port rail of the forward deck, to gaze with eager eyes at the far-off points of radiance glowing through the soft northern spring night. Farther down the rail, from the obscurity of the jostling throng, a stout male voice sent up the opening bars of the dear familiar song, “The Cove of Cork.” The ballad trembled upon the air as it progressed, then broke into something like sobs, and ceased. “Ah, Barney,” a sympathetic voice cried out, “’tis no longer the Cove; ’tis Queenstown they’re after calling it now. Small wandher the song won’t listen to itself be sung!” “But they haven’t taken the Cove away--God bless it!” the other rejoined, bitterly. “’Tis there, beyant the lights, waitin’ for its honest name to come back to it when--when things are set right once more.” “Is it the Cove you think you see yonder?” queried another, captiously. “Thim’s the Fastnet and Cape Clear lights. We’re fifty miles and more from Cork.” “Thin if ’twas daylight,” croaked an old man between coughs, “we’d be in sight of The O’Mahony’s castles, or what bloody Cromwell left of them.” “It’s mad ye are, Martin,” remonstrated a female voice. “The’re laygues beyant on Dunmanus Bay. Wasn’t I born mesilf at Durrus?” “The O’Mahony of Murrisk is on board,” whispered some one else, “returnin’ to his estates. I had it this day from the cook’s helper. The quantity of mate that same O’Mahony’s been ’atin’! An’ dhrink, is it? Faith, there’s no English nobleman could touch him!”