He wrote: "Music is the first faculty of the Irish... we will endeavour to teach the people to sing the songs of their country that they may keep alive in their minds the love of the fatherland.
In the Beatles' movie A Hard Day's Night, Paul McCartney's Irish grandfather begins singing the song at the Metropolitan Police after they arrest him for peddling autographed pictures of the band members.
In any case, the Irish prime minister Éamon de Valera did not respond to Churchill's telegram, and Ireland officially remained neutral for the entire duration of the war.
Davis describes how he learned of ancient fighters for freedom as a boy — the three hundred Spartans who fought at the Battle of Thermopylae.
The "three men" may refer to Horatius Cocles and his two companions who defended the Sublician Bridge, a legend recounted in Macaulay's poem "Horatius, published as part of the Lays of Ancient Rome, in 1842, or alternatively to the three assassins of Julius Caesar (Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus and Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus) who aimed to preserve the Roman Republic from tyranny.
Davis mentions his belief that only moral, religious men could set Ireland free, and his own aims to make himself worthy of such a task.
And from that time, through wildest woe, That hope has shone a far light, Nor could love's brightest summer glow Outshine that solemn starlight; It seemed to watch above my head In forum, field and fane, Its angel voice sang round my bed, A Nation once again!